There is limited direct empirical evidence to evaluate the efficacy of using opportunistically found bird carcasses as proxies for estimating pollutant exposure in populations of live birds for avian ecotoxicology studies. In this study, we analyzed total mercury concentrations in feathers collected from live Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua) chicks and from Gentoo Penguin chick carcasses found at the same breeding colonies. Distributions of mercury concentrations for feathers from live-caught chicks and from found-dead chicks broadly overlap and, for our study, feathers from found-dead penguin chicks provide similar information about exposure to mercury as do feathers from live penguin chicks from the same locations. Our results suggest that, when mercury is estimated to be below adverse effect levels, the common practice of sampling from opportunistically found chick carcasses is a suitable and less-invasive alternative method of specimen collection in penguin colonies.

有限的直接经验证据可以评估使用偶然发现的鸟类尸体作为评估鸟类生态毒理学研究活鸟种群中污染物暴露的代理的有效性。在这项研究中，我们分析了从活的 Gentoo Penguin ( Pygoscelis papua) 小鸡和来自同一繁殖群的 Gentoo Penguin 小鸡尸体。活捉的小鸡和发现死的小鸡羽毛中汞浓度的分布大致重叠，在我们的研究中，发现死亡的企鹅小鸡的羽毛提供了与来自同一地点的活企鹅小鸡的羽毛类似的汞暴露信息. 我们的结果表明，当估计汞低于不利影响水平时，从偶然发现的小鸡尸体中取样的常见做法是一种合适且侵入性较小的企鹅群标本采集替代方法。