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Microplastic pollution is a pervasive global issue affecting various ecosystems. Despite the escalating production and well-documented contamination in both aquatic and terrestrial environments, the research focused on airborne microplastics and their interaction with terrestrial birds remains limited. In this study, we collected fecal sacs from Common swifts (Apus apus) to investigate their diet and to evaluate the potential ingestion of microplastics by both adults and nestlings. The diet was mainly composed of Hymenoptera and Coleoptera and did not differ among sexes and age classes. The 33% of nestlings' and 52% of adults' fecal sacs contained anthropogenic items, the totality of which was in the shape form of fibers. The 19.4% of the anthropogenic items were chemically characterized as microplastics, either polyethylene terephthalate (PET; two microfibers) or cellophane (four microfibers). Airborne anthropogenic items, including microplastic, might be passively ingested during the Common swift aerial feeding. In addition, our findings suggest that these ingested microparticles have the potential to be transferred to the offspring through food. While further research is essential to elucidate the pathways of microplastic ingestion, our results reinforce the evidence of the transfer of anthropogenic items from the atmosphere to the biota. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mercury is a ubiquitous contaminant known to accumulate in wildlife, particularly bird species at higher trophic levels. Knowledge of tissue-specific Hg distributions aids our understanding of Hg bioaccumulation in organisms. In this study, one adult and three juvenile Collared Scops Owls (Otus lettia) were studied to elucidate the bioaccumulation of Hg in body tissues. Six tissues and organs (feathers, nails, heart, liver, gizzard, and muscle), as well as gastric contents, were examined for total Hg (THg) and methylmercury (MeHg) contents, Hg isotopic compositions including mass-dependent fractionation (MDF; δ202Hg) and mass-independent fractionation (MIF; Δ199Hg and Δ201Hg), and C (δ13C) and N (δ15N) isotopic compositions. Tissue-specific THg and MeHg concentrations in the adult were in the ranges of 150–1360 ng/g and 17–1060 ng/g, and lower in the juveniles at 91–419 ng/g and 67–350 ng/g, respectively. The δ202Hg values in the adult were strongly negative at −1.75‰ ± 0.17‰ compared with the juveniles at −0.99‰ ± 0.25‰. The adult exhibited lower MIF values than the juveniles, at 0.23‰ ± 0.07‰ for Δ199Hg and 0.2‰ ± 0.11‰ for Δ201Hg, compared with 0.81‰ ± 0.09‰ and 0.66‰ ± 0.07‰, respectively. The lower adult MDF and MIF values suggest that the adult tended to accumulate negative Hg isotopes but the juvenile's positive Hg isotopes. Differences between adult and juvenile tissue Hg concentrations indicate that metabolic processes play an important role in Hg accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microplastic pollution is a pervasive global issue affecting various ecosystems. Despite the escalating production and well-documented contamination in both aquatic and terrestrial environments, the research focused on airborne microplastics and their interaction with terrestrial birds remains limited. In this study, we collected fecal sacs from Common swifts (Apus apus) to investigate their diet and to evaluate the potential ingestion of microplastics by both adults and nestlings. The diet was mainly composed of Hymenoptera and Coleoptera and did not differ among sexes and age classes. The 33% of nestlings’ and 52% of adults’ fecal sacs contained anthropogenic items, the totality of which was in the shape form of fibers. The 19.4% of the anthropogenic items were chemically characterized as microplastics, either polyethylene terephthalate (PET; two microfibers) or cellophane (four microfibers). Airborne anthropogenic items, including microplastic, might be passively ingested during the Common swift aerial feeding. In addition, our findings suggest that these ingested microparticles have the potential to be transferred to the offspring through food. While further research is essential to elucidate the pathways of microplastic ingestion, our results reinforce the evidence of the transfer of anthropogenic items from the atmosphere to the biota.

Knowledge is limited about the bioaccumulation of persistent halogenated compounds (PHCs) in terrestrial wildlife. Several PHCs, including dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its metabolites (designated as DDTs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), decabromodiphenylethane (DBDPE) and 1,2-bis(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy) ethane (BTBPE), and stable isotopes (δ 15 N and δ 13 C) were analyzed in the muscle of four terrestrial passerines, Parus major , Copsychus saularis , Pycnonotus sinensis and Pycnonotus jocosus , from a nature reserve in South China. P . major had the highest PHC concentrations, with median values of 1060, 401, 92, 25 and 0.3 ng/g lipid weight for DDTs, PCBs, PBDEs, DBDPE and BTBPE, respectively. Fractions of DDT in P . jocosus and PCBs 153, 118 and 180 in C . saularis were higher compared with the other species. The inter-species differences in PHC concentrations and profiles could be attributed to the differences in trophic level, diet, living habits and metabolic capacity among the birds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a number of studies have addressed the environmental presence and behavior of the Dechlorane Plus (DP) flame retardant, there is still a dearth of information in terrestrial ecosystems. The present study revealed that median ∑DP (including anti- and syn-DP isomers) concentrations ranged from 10 to 810 ng/g lipid weight in muscle and liver tissues of six terrestrial raptor species collected in 2004–2006 from Beijing, China. Some concentrations rival the greatest DP burdens ever reported in global wildlife. Significant, positive correlations were observed between f anti (concentration ratio of anti-isomer to ∑DP) and ∑DP concentrations in the Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) tissues. These results suggested that the DP burdens could be substantially driven by the accumulation of the anti-isomer in terrestrial birds. The tissue-specific accumulation of DP further suggested that factors (e.g., hepatic binding enzymes) other than lipid solubility could be important in determining tissue deposition of DP. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

ABSTRACT In this study, a method utilizing PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) of a mitochondrial gene was developed for the identification of chicken (Gallus gallus), quail (Coturnix coturnix), and common pigeon (Columba livia) meat. PCR products of ~440 bp were obtained from the 12S rRNA gene of these three birds using a pair of universal primers. The three terrestrial birds can be distinguished using one restriction endonuclease, Alu I, which was selected based on species-specific variations in the mt 12S rRNA gene sequence using 9 newly-obtained and 44 published chicken, quail and pigeon sequences. This method was also successfully used to identify commercial quail and pigeon meat products, which were found to be adulterated with chicken meat. Additionally, our method had relatively high sensitivity for detecting a meat mixture. Ten percent of chicken meat in the mixed quail and pigeon sample was detectable. This assay can be useful for the accurate identification of meats from terrestrial birds, avoiding mislabeling or fraudulent species substitution in meat products.