Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in gentoo penguins: variations at the individual level
Feathers have been widely used to assess mercury contamination in birds as they reflect metal concentrations accumulated between successive moult periods: they are also easy to sample and haveminimum impact on the study birds. Moult is considered the major pathway for mercury excretion in seabirds....
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10773/17276 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 |
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ftria:oai:ria.ua.pt:10773/17276 2023-05-15T18:03:51+02:00 Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in gentoo penguins: variations at the individual level Pedro, Sara Xavier, José C. Tavares, Sílvia Trathan, Phil N. Ratcliffe, Norman Paiva, Vitor H. Medeiros, Renata Pereira, Eduarda Pardal, Miguel A. 2015 http://hdl.handle.net/10773/17276 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 eng eng Public Library of Science 1932-6203 http://hdl.handle.net/10773/17276 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 openAccess article 2015 ftria https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 2022-05-25T18:35:17Z Feathers have been widely used to assess mercury contamination in birds as they reflect metal concentrations accumulated between successive moult periods: they are also easy to sample and haveminimum impact on the study birds. Moult is considered the major pathway for mercury excretion in seabirds. Penguins are widely believed to undergo a complete, annual moult during which they do not feed. As penguins lose all their feathers, they are expected to have a low individual-variability in feather mercury concentration as all feathers are formed simultaneously fromthe same somatic reserves. This assumption is central to penguin studies that use feathers to examine the annual or among-individual variation in mercury concentrations in penguins. To test this assumption, we measured the mercury concentrations in 3–5 body feathers of 52 gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua) breeding atBird Island, South Georgia (54°S 38°W). Twenty-five percent of the penguins studied showed substantial within-individual variation in the amount ofmercury in their feathers (Coefficient of Variation: 34.7–96.7%). This variation may be caused by differences in moult patterns among individuals within the population leading to different interpretations in the overall population. Further investigation is now needed to fully understand individual variation in penguins’ moult. Article in Journal/Newspaper Pygoscelis papua Repositório Institucional da Universidade de Aveiro (RIA) PLOS ONE 10 9 e0137622 |
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Open Polar |
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Repositório Institucional da Universidade de Aveiro (RIA) |
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ftria |
language |
English |
description |
Feathers have been widely used to assess mercury contamination in birds as they reflect metal concentrations accumulated between successive moult periods: they are also easy to sample and haveminimum impact on the study birds. Moult is considered the major pathway for mercury excretion in seabirds. Penguins are widely believed to undergo a complete, annual moult during which they do not feed. As penguins lose all their feathers, they are expected to have a low individual-variability in feather mercury concentration as all feathers are formed simultaneously fromthe same somatic reserves. This assumption is central to penguin studies that use feathers to examine the annual or among-individual variation in mercury concentrations in penguins. To test this assumption, we measured the mercury concentrations in 3–5 body feathers of 52 gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua) breeding atBird Island, South Georgia (54°S 38°W). Twenty-five percent of the penguins studied showed substantial within-individual variation in the amount ofmercury in their feathers (Coefficient of Variation: 34.7–96.7%). This variation may be caused by differences in moult patterns among individuals within the population leading to different interpretations in the overall population. Further investigation is now needed to fully understand individual variation in penguins’ moult. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Pedro, Sara Xavier, José C. Tavares, Sílvia Trathan, Phil N. Ratcliffe, Norman Paiva, Vitor H. Medeiros, Renata Pereira, Eduarda Pardal, Miguel A. |
spellingShingle |
Pedro, Sara Xavier, José C. Tavares, Sílvia Trathan, Phil N. Ratcliffe, Norman Paiva, Vitor H. Medeiros, Renata Pereira, Eduarda Pardal, Miguel A. Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in gentoo penguins: variations at the individual level |
author_facet |
Pedro, Sara Xavier, José C. Tavares, Sílvia Trathan, Phil N. Ratcliffe, Norman Paiva, Vitor H. Medeiros, Renata Pereira, Eduarda Pardal, Miguel A. |
author_sort |
Pedro, Sara |
title |
Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in gentoo penguins: variations at the individual level |
title_short |
Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in gentoo penguins: variations at the individual level |
title_full |
Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in gentoo penguins: variations at the individual level |
title_fullStr |
Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in gentoo penguins: variations at the individual level |
title_full_unstemmed |
Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in gentoo penguins: variations at the individual level |
title_sort |
feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in gentoo penguins: variations at the individual level |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10773/17276 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 |
genre |
Pygoscelis papua |
genre_facet |
Pygoscelis papua |
op_relation |
1932-6203 http://hdl.handle.net/10773/17276 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 |
op_rights |
openAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 |
container_title |
PLOS ONE |
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10 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
e0137622 |
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1766174880123846656 |