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 have minimum impact on the study birds. Moult is considered the major pathway for mercury excretion in seabirds....
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Online Access: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/80118/ https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/80118/1/journal.pone.0137622.pdf |
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ftunivcardiff:oai:https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk:80118 2023-05-15T15:44:43+02:00 Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in Gentoo Penguins: variations at the individual level Pedro, Sara Xavier, Jose C. Tavares, Sílvia Trathan, Phil Ratcliffe, Norman Paiva, Vitor H. Medeiros Mirra, Renata Pereira, Eduardo Pardal, Miguel A. 2015-09-09 application/pdf https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/80118/ https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/80118/1/journal.pone.0137622.pdf en eng Public Library of Science https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/80118/1/journal.pone.0137622.pdf Pedro, Sara, Xavier, Jose C., Tavares, Sílvia, Trathan, Phil, Ratcliffe, Norman, Paiva, Vitor H., Medeiros Mirra, Renata https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/view/cardiffauthors/A023189U.html, Pereira, Eduardo and Pardal, Miguel A. 2015. Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in Gentoo Penguins: variations at the individual level. PLoS ONE 10 (9) , e0137622. 10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 file https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/80118/1/journal.pone.0137622.pdf doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 cc_by CC-BY QL Zoology Article PeerReviewed 2015 ftunivcardiff https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 2022-09-25T20:49:54Z 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 have minimum 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 from the 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 at Bird Island, South Georgia (54°S 38°W). Twenty-five percent of the penguins studied showed substantial within-individual variation in the amount of mercury 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 Bird Island Pygoscelis papua Cardiff University: ORCA (Online Research @ Cardiff) Bird Island ENVELOPE(-38.060,-38.060,-54.004,-54.004) PLOS ONE 10 9 e0137622 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Cardiff University: ORCA (Online Research @ Cardiff) |
op_collection_id |
ftunivcardiff |
language |
English |
topic |
QL Zoology |
spellingShingle |
QL Zoology Pedro, Sara Xavier, Jose C. Tavares, Sílvia Trathan, Phil Ratcliffe, Norman Paiva, Vitor H. Medeiros Mirra, Renata Pereira, Eduardo Pardal, Miguel A. Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in Gentoo Penguins: variations at the individual level |
topic_facet |
QL Zoology |
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 have minimum 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 from the 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 at Bird Island, South Georgia (54°S 38°W). Twenty-five percent of the penguins studied showed substantial within-individual variation in the amount of mercury 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, Jose C. Tavares, Sílvia Trathan, Phil Ratcliffe, Norman Paiva, Vitor H. Medeiros Mirra, Renata Pereira, Eduardo Pardal, Miguel A. |
author_facet |
Pedro, Sara Xavier, Jose C. Tavares, Sílvia Trathan, Phil Ratcliffe, Norman Paiva, Vitor H. Medeiros Mirra, Renata Pereira, Eduardo 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 |
https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/80118/ https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/80118/1/journal.pone.0137622.pdf |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-38.060,-38.060,-54.004,-54.004) |
geographic |
Bird Island |
geographic_facet |
Bird Island |
genre |
Bird Island Pygoscelis papua |
genre_facet |
Bird Island Pygoscelis papua |
op_relation |
https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/80118/1/journal.pone.0137622.pdf Pedro, Sara, Xavier, Jose C., Tavares, Sílvia, Trathan, Phil, Ratcliffe, Norman, Paiva, Vitor H., Medeiros Mirra, Renata https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/view/cardiffauthors/A023189U.html, Pereira, Eduardo and Pardal, Miguel A. 2015. Feathers as a tool to assess mercury contamination in Gentoo Penguins: variations at the individual level. PLoS ONE 10 (9) , e0137622. 10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 file https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/80118/1/journal.pone.0137622.pdf doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 |
op_rights |
cc_by |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137622 |
container_title |
PLOS ONE |
container_volume |
10 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
e0137622 |
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