Fundación Migres, CIMA, Ctra. N-340, Km.85, Tarifa, E-11380, Cádiz, Spain.
Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC - CSIC, UCLM, JCCM), Ronda de Toledo 12, 13005, Ciudad Real, Spain.
Environ Pollut. 2020 Aug;263(Pt B):114523. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114523. Epub 2020 Apr 7.
Mining is responsible of releasing trace elements to the environment with potential negative effects on wildlife. Traditionally, wildlife exposure assessment has been developed by analyzing mainly environmental compartments or internal tissues. Nowadays, the use of non-destructive matrices such as hair or feathers has increased. Nevertheless, its use in free-living terrestrial mammals or in birds other than raptors or passerines is less frequent. The main objective of our study was to determine the potential for hair and feathers in a rabbit and bird species to be used as non-invasive proxy tissues for assessing internal metal concentrations at polluted sites from mining. We tested whether hair of European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and feathers of red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa) can be used as non-destructive biological monitoring tools of both essential (Cu, Zn) and non-essential (Pb, Cd, As) trace elements in a currently active copper mining site. We found significant different concentrations, particularly in non-essential elements, between reference area and mining site. Non-essential elements Pb and Cd showed higher correlations between tissues and hair/feathers, while few significant patterns were observed for essential elements such as Cu and Zn. Although feathers showed lower levels of correlation with internal tissues than hair, both could be useful as non-destructive biological monitoring tools. Further tissues, and more importantly, hair and feathers allowed discrimination between polluted and reference sites to indicate bioavailability and pollution status. In addition, hair and feathers can be used in monitoring pollution of an active mining site, being specially interesting for biomonitoring a certain period of time in the event of a particular episode of pollution, in addition to the chronic exposure. As occurred with hair in rabbits, feathers seem to be a good compartment to detect differences between a potential polluted area, such the surrounding of an active mine site, and a non-polluted area.
采矿会将微量元素释放到环境中，从而对野生动物产生潜在的负面影响。传统上，野生动物暴露评估主要通过分析环境组分或内部组织来进行。如今，越来越多地使用毛发或羽毛等非破坏性基质。然而，它在自由生活的陆地哺乳动物或猛禽或雀形目以外的鸟类中的应用较少。我们研究的主要目的是确定兔子和鸟类的毛发和羽毛是否可以作为非侵入性替代组织，用于评估来自采矿的污染地点的内部金属浓度。我们测试了欧洲兔（Oryctolagus cuniculus）的毛发和红腿鹧鸪（Alectoris rufa）的羽毛是否可以作为目前活跃的铜矿开采现场基本（Cu、Zn）和非基本（Pb、Cd、As）微量元素的非破坏性生物监测工具。我们发现，在参考区和矿区之间，非基本元素特别是非基本元素的浓度存在显著差异。非必需元素 Pb 和 Cd 在组织与毛发/羽毛之间显示出更高的相关性，而对于 Cu 和 Zn 等必需元素则观察到很少有显著模式。尽管羽毛与内部组织的相关性低于毛发，但两者都可以作为非破坏性生物监测工具。进一步的组织，更重要的是，毛发和羽毛可以区分污染和参考地点，以指示生物利用度和污染状况。此外，毛发和羽毛可用于监测活跃矿区的污染情况，特别是在发生特定污染事件时，除了慢性暴露外，还可以用于监测特定时间段。就像兔子的毛发一样，羽毛似乎是一个很好的隔室，可以检测潜在污染区域（如活跃矿区周围）与非污染区域之间的差异。
