Department of Biology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N5E3, Canada.
Ecol Appl. 2010 Sep;20(6):1766-74. doi: 10.1890/09-1473.1.
Ecologists have frequently used biochemical assays as proxies for processes or phenomena too difficult to explore by traditional means of investigation. Feathers have been subjected to a number of chemical analyses to study such things as their elemental composition, contaminants, and hormones. The reliance on standard methodology of using concentrations to express quantities of chemical substances is seriously problematic because it creates artifacts by ignoring the physiology of feathers. Some elements and compounds are incorporated into the feather as part of the very building blocks of the keratin. However, others that are less functionally important to feathers (but not necessarily to the bird) enter the developing cells in proportion to their abundance in the bloodstream; in other words, feathers are merely receptacles, and deposition of chemicals is time dependent. In the latter case, one that applies to much of the work done on feather chemistry, data expressed as concentrations are meaningless because the varying mass across the feather alters concentrations in a way that has no biological significance. I discuss this problem and various pitfalls in the chemical analysis of feathers, and offer solutions that ultimately will offer a better understanding of the mechanisms influencing feather composition and, thus, the ecological patterns and processes they were meant to study.
生态学家经常使用生化分析作为代理，以探索传统调查方法难以探索的过程或现象。羽毛已经进行了许多化学分析，以研究它们的元素组成、污染物和激素等问题。依赖于使用浓度来表示化学物质数量的标准方法存在严重问题，因为它忽略了羽毛的生理学，从而产生了假象。一些元素和化合物作为角蛋白的组成部分被纳入羽毛中。然而，其他对羽毛不太重要的元素和化合物（但对鸟类不一定重要）则按照它们在血液中的丰度进入发育中的细胞；换句话说，羽毛只是容器，化学物质的沉积是时间依赖的。在后一种情况下，适用于羽毛化学研究的大部分工作，以浓度表示的数据是没有意义的，因为羽毛的质量变化以没有生物学意义的方式改变了浓度。我讨论了羽毛化学分析中存在的这个问题和各种陷阱，并提出了最终将提供更好地理解影响羽毛组成的机制的解决方案，从而更好地研究它们所研究的生态模式和过程。
