Physiological impacts of pollution exposure in seabird's progeny nesting in a Mediterranean contaminated area

• Published in: Marine Pollution Bulletin
• Main Authors: Oudi, Abir, Chokri, Mohamed Ali, Hammouda, Abdessalem, Chaabane, Rim, Badraoui, Riadh, Besnard, Aurélien, Santos, Raphael
• Other Authors: Université de Gabès, Hedi Chaker Hospital (CHU), Partenaires INRAE, Université de Sfax, Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro), University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland (HES-SO)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: Biomarker; Antioxidant; Oxidative stress; Sterna hirundo; Genotoxicity; Gulf of Gabes; Reproductive impairment; Chick body mass; Marine pollution; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; Common tern
• Online Access: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02619725; https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02619725/document; https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02619725/file/S0025326X19301560.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.02.056

International audience Aquatic wildlife is exposed through trophic transfer of hazardous substances to several threats inducing physiological impairments. We aimed at assessing the impact of contamination in one of the hot spots of pollution along Mediterranean coasts, the gulf of Gabes in Tunisia, on Common tern Sterna hirundo, a piscivorous top predator bird. Firstly, we compared the reproductive effort of breeding adults through clutch size distribution in three sites with different levels of pollution. Then, a battery of genotoxicity and oxidative stress biomarkers was carried out to assess physiological impairments in chicks. While defense mechanisms showed a depletion, lipid peroxidation and genotoxicity increased significantly according to pollution level. The multi-biomarker approach used here, discriminated chicks according to contamination degree of their nesting sites. Increases in genotoxicity and oxidative stress were correlated to a decrease in chick body mass known to lead to long-term impacts on juvenile survival and recruitment in birds.