Climate Variability May Alter Pollutants in Some Sub-Arctic Birds | NIST

Climate Variability May Alter Pollutants in Some Sub-Arctic Birds | NIST

Climate Variability May Alter Pollutants in Some Sub-Arctic Birds

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Emory University have discovered that some bird species in the sub-Arctic tend to ingest larger amounts of pollutants than others during periods of climate variation.

The study, which was published in the journal Chemosphere, examined the eggs of two similar bird species that live very close to each other along the coasts of the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, the thick-billed murre (Uria lomvia) and the common murre (Uria aalge). Despite their similarities, the thick-billed murres’ ingestion of environmental contaminants is more variable than that of their cousins, the common murres.

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