Assessing the impact of environmental chemicals on seabird development and health

Seabird species are experiencing one of the fastest rates of population decline Worldwide, compared to other avian species (Croxall et al., 2012; Paleczny et al., 2015). There are many different threats to seabirds, with invasive alien species, bycatch in fisheries and climate change being some of the most severe. Another concern is the global pollution of marine habitats caused by human waste products (Dias et al., 2019). Pollutant chemicals can be absorbed by the birds in a variety of ways, for example through ingestion or dermal exposure. Due to their higher level in the food chain, seabirds are more vulnerable to accumulated pollutants in their prey (Schreiber and Burger, 2001). Studies have shown negative effects of contaminants, for instance on chicks of the Common Tern Sterna hirundo (Oudi et al., 2019), and have shown a link between poor physiological status and pollutant concentration in Mandt's Black Guillemot Cepphus grylle mandtii (Eckbo et al., 2019). Impacts were also observed in Black-Legged Kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla: Different studies found correlations between pollutant chemicals and coloration (Blévin et al., 2014), corticosterone levels, body mass (Nordstad et al., 2012), survival rate and breeding probability (Goutte et al., 2015). However most studies only focus in a single chemical type. Here we intend to broaden out the analysis and try to take a non-targeted approach to studying environmental chemical exposure in free living seabirds.
Because seabird chicks are more susceptible to the harmful effects of environmental chemicals due to the increased sensitivity of physiological systems during development, they are therefore particularly interesting for studies in this field. We will therefore focus on seabird chicks in this PhD.
The main aims of this PhD project are to unravel the impacts of contaminants exposure on the development, health and survival of seabirds. This will be done by:
1) Quantifying concentrations of several families of environmental chemicals, establishing exposure profiles within populations and looking for interspecies differences
2) Using physiological and behavioural methods to assess status and changes in physiological function and health of the seabird chicks during their early development
3) Relating the exposure profiles to the health status and possibly tracking these with the age of the birds
4) Assigning exposure profiles to the foraging ecology of the seabirds
The results will contribute to a better understanding of the decline in seabirds and shed light on some of the often still unknown effects of environmental chemicals in marine habitats.
References: Blévin, P., Tartu, S., Angelier, F., Leclaire, S., Bustnes, J. O., Moe, B., ... & Chastel, O. (2014). Integument colouration in relation to persistent organic pollutants and body condition in arctic breeding black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla). Science of the total environment, 470, 248-254. Croxall, J. P., Butchart, S. H., Lascelles, B., Stattersfield, A. J., Sullivan, B., Symes, A., & Taylor, P. (2012). Seabird conservation status, threats and priority actions: a global assessment. Bird Conservation International, 22(1), 1-34. Dias, M. P., Martin, R., Pearmain, E. J., Burfield, I. J., Small, C., Phillips, R. A., ... Croxall, J. P. (2019). Threats to seabirds: A global assessment. Biological Conservation. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2019.06.033 Eckbo, N., Le Bohec, C., Planas-Bielsa, V., Warner, N. A., Schull, Q., Herzke, D., ... & Borgå, K. (2019). Individual variability in contaminants and physiological status in a resident Arctic seabird species. Environmental Pollution, 249, 191-199. Goutte, A., Barbraud, C., Herzke, D., Bustamante, P., Angelier, F., Tartu, S., ... & Bustnes, J. O. (2015). Survival rate and breeding outputs in a high Arctic seabird exposed to legacy persistent organic pollutants and mercury. Environmental Pollution, 200, 1-9. Nordstad, T., Moe, B., Bustnes, J. O., Bech, C., Chastel, O., Goutt