Research Institute of Biodiversity and department of Animal Biology, Barcelona University, Av Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Environ Pollut. 2011 Oct;159(10):2899-905. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2011.04.034. Epub 2011 May 26.
PAHs were analyzed in the liver of 5 species of pelagic seabirds (Procellariiformes) from the northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The main objective was to assess the trophic and geographic trends of PAHs in seabirds to evaluate their suitability as bioindicators of chronic marine pollution by these compounds. Although higher levels of PAHs have been described in the Mediterranean compared to other oceanic regions, we did not find significant spatial patterns and observed only minor effects of the geographic origin on seabird PAHs. However, we found significant higher PAH levels in petrel compared to shearwater species, which could be related to differences in their exploitation of mesopelagic and epipelagic resources, respectively, and the vertical dynamic of PAHs in the water column. Overall, although this study enhances the need of multi-species approaches to show a more comprehensive evaluation of marine pollution, seabirds emerged as poor indicators of pelagic chronic PAH levels.
本研究分析了东北大西洋和地中海 5 种远洋海鸟（鹱形目）肝脏中的多环芳烃（PAHs）。主要目的是评估海鸟中 PAHs 的营养和地理趋势，以评估它们作为这些化合物慢性海洋污染生物标志物的适宜性。尽管与其他海洋区域相比，地中海的 PAHs 水平较高，但我们没有发现明显的空间模式，只观察到海鸟 PAHs 的地理起源的微小影响。然而，我们发现海燕的 PAH 水平明显高于剪嘴鸥，这可能与它们分别对中层和上层海洋资源的利用以及水柱中 PAHs 的垂直动态的差异有关。总的来说，尽管这项研究增强了需要采用多物种方法来更全面地评估海洋污染，但海鸟作为远洋慢性 PAH 水平的生物标志物表现不佳。
