Deakin University Faculty of Science Engineering and Built Environment, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, 75 Pigdons Road, Highton, VIC 3216, Australia.
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Chemistry, Høgskoleringen 1, Trondheim, Trøndelag NO 7491, Norway.
Sci Total Environ. 2024 Dec 10;955:176790. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.176790. Epub 2024 Oct 10.
Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) may threaten wildlife due to their high environmental persistence, toxicity potential and potential to bioaccumulate. Bioaccumulation may be particularly profound in long-lived animals inhabiting higher trophic niches. To date, there is a paucity of data on PFAS bioaccumulation potential in individual wild birds over their lifetime. In this study, we analysed within-individual PFAS contamination in a declining long-distance migratory shorebird, the ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres), and the variation in PFAS contamination with age by repeatedly sampling 19 individuals throughout their lives between 2007 and 2022. We found blood-sampled turnstones on their non-breeding grounds in King Island, Tasmania, exhibited no variation of PFAS contamination with age, with low overall circulating PFAS concentrations (<0.015-25 ng/g, median: 0.78 ng/g). Moreover, irrespective of the increased PFAS usage along the East Asian Australasian Flyway over the past two decades, ruddy turnstone survival remained consistent throughout the 15-year sampling period, with no temporal trend in percentage of juveniles in the population. From a conservation perspective, low concentrations of PFAS found in this study are good news as they suggest PFAS alone do not seem to threaten turnstone survival. However, the unknown effects of exposure to mixtures of pollutants may yet threaten turnstones.
全氟和多氟烷基物质（PFAS）由于其在环境中的高持久性、毒性潜力和生物累积潜力，可能对野生动物构成威胁。生物累积可能在栖息在较高营养级的长寿命动物中尤为明显。迄今为止，关于单个野生鸟类一生中 PFAS 生物累积潜力的数据很少。在这项研究中，我们分析了数量不断减少的长距离迁徙涉禽红腹滨鹬（Arenaria interpres）个体内的 PFAS 污染情况，并通过在 2007 年至 2022 年期间对 19 只个体进行多次采样，研究了 PFAS 污染随年龄的变化。我们发现，在塔斯马尼亚州金岛的非繁殖地采集的血液样本中的滨鹬体内没有 PFAS 污染随年龄变化的情况，整体循环 PFAS 浓度较低（<0.015-25ng/g，中位数：0.78ng/g）。此外，无论在过去二十年东亚-澳大拉西亚飞行路线上 PFAS 的使用量增加，滨鹬的存活率在整个 15 年的采样期间保持一致，种群中幼鸟的比例没有时间趋势。从保护的角度来看，本研究中发现的 PFAS 浓度较低是个好消息，因为它们表明 PFAS 本身似乎不会威胁滨鹬的生存。然而，接触污染物混合物的未知影响仍可能威胁到滨鹬。
