New publication on plastic and Storm Petrels!

Clark, B.L., Carneiro, A.P.B., [...] Sanz-Aguilar, A.,[...] Rotger, A., et al. Global assessment of marine plastic exposure risk for oceanic birds. Nat Commun 14, 3665 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38900-z

 In a shell: Unevenly distributed plastic pollution in the ocean can impact on vulnerable marine organisms, particularly petrel seabirds. High exposed zones were found in the Mediterranean, Black Seas, Pacific oceans, South Atlantic, and Indian Ocean. We emphasize the need for international collaboration to mitigate these risks.

Photo: Y.Muzika - eBird

Abstract: Plastic pollution is distributed patchily around the world’s oceans. Likewise, marine organisms that are vulnerable to plastic ingestion or entanglement have uneven distributions. Understanding where wildlife encounters plastic is crucial for targeting research and mitigation. Oceanic seabirds, particularly petrels, frequently ingest plastic, are highly threatened, and cover vast distances during foraging and migration. However, the spatial overlap between petrels and plastics is poorly understood. Here we combine marine plastic density estimates with individual movement data for 7137 birds of 77 petrel species to estimate relative exposure risk. We identify high exposure risk areas in the Mediterranean and Black seas, and the northeast Pacific, northwest Pacific, South Atlantic and southwest Indian oceans. Plastic exposure risk varies greatly among species and populations, and between breeding and non-breeding seasons. Exposure risk is disproportionately high for Threatened species.  Outside the Mediterranean and Black seas, exposure risk is highest in the high seas and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the USA, Japan, and the UK. Birds generally had higher plastic exposure risk outside the EEZ of the country where they breed. We identify conservation and research priorities, and highlight that international collaboration is key to addressing the impacts of marine plastic on wide-ranging species.

 

 

 

New publication on Vultures and lead!

Arrondo, E., [..], Cortés-Avizanda, A., [...], Donázar, J.A. 2020. Dust and bullets: Stable isotopes and GPS tracking disentangle lead sources for a large avian scavenger. Enviornmental Pollution, in press https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.115022

Abstract: Lead intoxication is an important threat to human health and a large number of wildlife species. Animals are exposed to several sources of lead highlighting hunting ammunition and lead that is bioavailable in topsoil. Disentangling the role of each in lead exposure is an important conservation issue, particularly for species potentially affected by lead poisoning, such as vultures. The identification of lead sources in vultures and other species has been classically addressed by means of stable-isotope comparisons, but the extremely varied isotope signatures found in ammunition hinders this identification when it overlaps with topsoil signatures.

In addition, assumptions related to the exposure of individual vultures to lead sources have been made without knowledge of the actual feeding grounds exploited by the birds. Here, we combine lead concentration analysis in blood, novel stable isotope approaches to assign the origin of the lead and GPS tracking data to investigate the main foraging grounds of two Iberian griffon vulture populations (N = 58) whose foraging ranges differ in terms of topsoil lead concentration and intensity of big game hunting activity. We found that the lead signature in vultures was closer to topsoil than to ammunition, but this similarity decreased significantly in the area with higher big game hunting activity. In addition, attending to the individual home ranges of the tracked birds, models accounting for the intensity of hunting activity better explained the higher blood lead concentration in vultures than topsoil exposure. In spite of that, our finding also show that lead exposure from topsoil is more important than previously thought