Linking environmental contamination, immunotixicity tests and disease resistance iin birds

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There is deep scientific concern and growing public awareness of human impacts on ecosystem health. Environmental contamination poses threats, perceived and real, to vertebrates inhabiting disturbed areas, with wild birds making up appealing, visible components of the ecosystem. Before they can fly, young birds reflect the quality of air and food in their immediate surroundings, and, as neonates, they are particularly sensitive to food- and air- borne contaminants. A valuable method that scientists have to study the subtle health effects of contaminant exposure is through testing the immune system which is essential for survival in the wild. Many scientists have shown that environmental pollutants do have negative effects on the immune system. This finding has been assumed to mean that those animals are more vulnerable to infectious diseases. However, there are several factors that have not been thoroughly addressed; 1) how to ensure that the immune function tests, mainly developed in domestic poultry, are effective in the wild species on which they are used, and 2) how these mmunological tests relates to disease.