Department of Experimental Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Łódź, Banacha 12/16, 90-237, Lodz, Poland.
Bull Environ Contam Toxicol. 2013 Sep;91(3):302-5. doi: 10.1007/s00128-013-1065-9. Epub 2013 Aug 4.
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.
本研究旨在探讨利用蓝山雀雏鸟的羽毛来评估内源性铅积累水平的可能性。为此，我们对从 8 个随机抽取的巢中随机选择的雏鸟进行了铅处理实验。暴露后 5 天，铅处理组雏鸟的羽毛中铅浓度明显高于对照组雏鸟。这一结果表明，羽毛可以作为可靠的非破坏性生物标志物，用于评估源自污染食物的重金属水平，这对于研究污染对生态后果的比较具有重要意义。
