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The highest mercury concentrations ever reported in a South American bird, the Striated Caracara (Phalcoboenus australis)

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Abstract

Mercury is a widely available pollutant associated with negative effects on wildlife, especially top predators. Here, we characterized the mercury concentrations in feathers of Striated Caracara Phalcoboenus australis on Isla de los Estados (Argentina). With feather mercury levels averaging 26.3 mg/kg, this population has the highest mean feather mercury ever reported for a bird population in South America. We propose that the high mercury concentrations are related to the feeding habits of the species: during feather moult, they are strongly associated with a Southern Rockhopper Penguin (Eudyptes chrysocome) colony known to be highly exposed to mercury contamination. Our results suggest that this Striated Caracara population should be monitored for acute effects and potential impacts of mercury toxicity.

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Fig. 1

Data availability

Raw feather mercury data and scripts to reproduce the analysis in R can be found in https://github.com/ulisesbalza/Mercury_caracaras.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Andrés Capdevielle, Amira Salom and Ricardo Sáenz Samaniego for their technical assistance in the field, and Henk Boersma for our safe trips to the island. Thanks to undergraduate students Megan Faulkner and Lisa Stoneham at Weber State University for conducting the mercury analysis. Last but not least, we are greatly thankful to Katie Harrington, Kurt K. Burnham and an Editor of Polar Biology for their insightful comments on this manuscript, even more so in these difficult times.

Funding

This study was possible due to fellowships from the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (PICT 2014 N° 1870), the Antarctic Research Trust and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

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UB, NAL and ARR conceived and designed research; UB and NAL conducted fieldwork; RB conducted mercury analysis; UB analysed data; UB wrote the first version of the manuscript; KP and ARR retrieved funds; all authors contributed with writing, discussion and editing various versions of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ulises Balza.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest regarding this article.

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Balza, U., Brasso, R., Lois, N.A. et al. The highest mercury concentrations ever reported in a South American bird, the Striated Caracara (Phalcoboenus australis). Polar Biol 44, 2189–2193 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02938-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02938-w

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