Contamination and plastic debris residues in Antarctic petrel species

全球工业生产和消费行为导致海洋污染日益严重。因此，越来越需要了解野生动物接触塑料和汞等污染源的普遍性和风险，特别是在南大洋等偏远地区。为了比较在南极和亚南极地区不同地点和季节时间采样的海燕对塑料的暴露情况，将使用最近建立的GC-MS协议确定蜡质羽毛油中三种常见增塑剂的存在。此外，还将使用羽毛样本和血液样本对相同鸟类的汞进行测量，羽毛样本将两次连续换羽之间的汞暴露量整合在一起，血液样本代表当前的暴露量。我们将重点关注小型海燕（风暴海燕，朊病毒和蓝海燕），并将分析东北太平洋风暴海燕繁殖的样本，以便与已知具有高塑料暴露的地区进行比较。我们将测试与繁殖和杂交分布和营养级（使用特定化合物的稳定同位素分析确定）相关的污染水平的差异。我们将进一步比较在南极繁殖季节早期和晚期（例如11月与3月）收集的样本，以量化繁殖季节间暴露的遗留效应。

Global industrial production and consumer behavior lead to increasing contamination of the oceans. Therefore, there is a growing need to understand the prevalence and risk associated with exposure of wildlife to sources of contamination such as plastics and mercury, especially in remote areas such as the Southern Ocean. To compare the exposure to plastics among petrels sampled at different Antarctic and subantarctic sites and times of the season, the presence of three common plasticizers will be determined in the waxy preen oil using a recently established GC-MS protocol. In addition, mercury will be measured from the same birds using feather samples which integrate the exposure to mercury between two successive moults and blood samples which are representative of the present exposure. We will focus on small petrels (storm-petrels, prions and blue petrels) and will also analyse samples from storm-petrels breeding in the North-east Pacific to enable a comparison to an area known to have high plastic exposure. We will test for differences in the level of contamination associated with breeding and inter-breeding distribution and trophic level (determined using compound-specific stable isotope analyses). We will further compare samples collected during the early and late Antarctic breeding season (e.g. November versus March) to quantify carry-over effects of the exposure in the inter-breeding season.