title: Avian feathers as bioindicators of the exposure to heavy metal contamination of food.
abstract: The aim of this study was to determine the possibility of using feathers of blue tit nestlings to assess the level of endogenous accumulation of lead. For this purpose we conducted an experiment with lead application to randomly chosen nestlings from eight randomly drawn broods. Five days after the exposure, feathers of lead-treated nestlings had significantly higher lead concentrations than control nestlings. This result suggests that feathers can be used as reliable non-destructive bioindicators to assess the level of heavy metals originating from contaminated food, which is of great significance for comparative studies on ecological consequences of pollution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Łódź, Banacha 12/16, 90-237, Lodz, Poland. mmarko@biol.uni.lodz.pl
authors.forename: Marcin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Markowski
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kaliński
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Skwarska
authors.forename: Jarosław
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wawrzyniak
authors.forename: Mirosława
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bańbura
authors.forename: Janusz
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Markowski
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zieliński
authors.forename: Jerzy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bańbura
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004032:Diet; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000378:metabolism*; D005241:Feathers / Q000737:chemistry*; D007854:Lead / Q000378:metabolism*; D011044:Poland; D020308:Songbirds / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism*; D013054:Spectrophotometry, Atomic
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D007854:Lead
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