New insights on the use of bill sheath as a biomonitoring tool for mercury in two kingfisher species: A comparison with different tissues

Autor: Gerlane de Medeiros Costa, Wilkinson Lopes Lázaro, Thaysa Costa Hurtado, Paulo Eduardo Teodoro, Jean Remy Davée Guimarães, Áurea Regina Alves Ignácio, Manoel dos Santos Filho, Sergi Díez
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Environmental research. 218
ISSN: 1096-0953
Popis: Bird species have been widely used as suitable bioindicators of environmental mercury (Hg). However, there is still some debate about the most suitable tissue to indicate Hg body burden in birds. For a long time, blood and feathers have proved to be relevant to monitor Hg at different time scales, and recently, bill sheath has been suggested as a potential tissue to this end. In the present study, we evaluated THg in muscle, liver, feathers, claws, and bill sheath in two waterbird species (i.e. the ringed and the Amazon kingfishers) from the Teles Pires, Juruena and Paraguay rivers. Considering all species and sites, feathers (5.47 ± 2.15 μg/g) and bill sheath (3.39 ± 1.37 μg/g) had mean THg concentrations about 2-, 3- and 10-times higher than claws, liver and muscle, respectively. When bird species were segregated, the ringed kingfisher showed THg values 1.8 times higher than the Amazon kingfisher in all tissues. Moreover, results showed that the Amazon kingfisher from the Juruena and Teles Pires rivers was clearly separated from the Paraguay River (control site), and was associated with higher THg values in the claws and feathers. Results obtained for the THg concentrations in bill sheath, muscle and liver tissues of the Amazon kingfisher using multivariate analysis of canonical variates (CVA) showed a pattern of segregation between the sampling areas, being the highest THg values in Teles Pires River samples. The largest bill sheath vector in the CVA suggests that this tissue is a key variable in the segregation of the samples. Overall, feathers may be useful for effects monitoring or spatial patterns, whereas bill sheath, which are more invasive, may be advantejous for temporal trends and retrospective studies of Hg pollution.
G. de Medeiros Costa would like to express her gratitude to Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES/Brazil) for a scholarship under the Programa de Doutorado Sanduiche no Exterior (PDSE), file 88881.189396/2018–01. The authors would also like to acknowledge the CYTED (Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo), for financing the MercuRed Network (420RT0007).
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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