Berglund Åsa M M, Rainio Miia J, Eeva Tapio
Section of Ecology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
PLoS One. 2015 Feb 13;10(2):e0117071. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117071. eCollection 2015.
Past mining and smelting activities have resulted in metal polluted environments all over the world, but long-term monitoring data is often scarce, especially in higher trophic levels. In this study we used bird (Parus major and Ficedula hypoleuca) excrement to monitor metal pollution in the terrestrial environment following 16 years of continuously reduced emissions from a copper/nickel smelter in Finland. In the early 1990s, lead and cadmium concentrations dropped significantly in excrement, but the reduction did not directly reflect the changes in atmospheric emission from the smelter. This is likely due to a continuous contribution of metals also from the soil pool. We conclude that bird excrement can be used to assess changes in the environment as a whole but not specifically changes in atmospheric emission. Inter-annual variation in excrement concentration of especially copper and nickel demonstrates the importance of long-term monitoring to discern significant trends.
过去的采矿和冶炼活动导致世界各地的环境受到金属污染，但长期监测数据往往匮乏，尤其是在较高营养级方面。在本研究中，我们利用鸟类（大山雀和白眉姬鹟）粪便来监测芬兰一家铜/镍冶炼厂排放持续减少16年后陆地环境中的金属污染情况。在20世纪90年代初，粪便中的铅和镉浓度显著下降，但这种下降并未直接反映出冶炼厂大气排放的变化。这可能是由于土壤库中金属的持续贡献。我们得出结论，鸟类粪便可用于评估整个环境的变化，但不能具体评估大气排放的变化。特别是铜和镍的粪便浓度的年际变化表明，长期监测对于识别显著趋势至关重要。
