Linking environmental contamination, immunotixicity tests and disease resistance iin birds

科学界对人类对生态系统健康的影响深感关切，公众也日益认识到这一点。 环境污染对栖息在受干扰地区的脊椎动物构成了感知的和真实的威胁，而野生鸟类是生态系统中吸引人的可见组成部分。在它们能飞之前，幼鸟反映了它们周围环境中的空气和食物的质量，而且，作为新生儿，它们对食物和空气传播的污染物特别敏感。科学家们研究污染物暴露对健康的微妙影响的一个有价值的方法是通过测试免疫系统，这是在野外生存所必需的。许多科学家已经证明，环境污染物确实对免疫系统有负面影响。 这一发现被认为意味着这些动物更容易感染传染病。然而，有几个因素尚未得到彻底解决：1）如何确保主要在家禽中开发的免疫功能测试在使用它们的野生物种中有效，以及2）这些免疫学测试如何与疾病相关。

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.