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Potential Exposure of Mallards to Agricultural Pollutants in Europe: An Investigation of Mallard Space Use, Utilization of the Agricultural Landscape, and Potential Exposure to Pesticides
Linnaeus University, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Biology and Environmental Science. (Zoonotic Ecology and Epidemiology)
2021 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 40 credits / 60 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

The use of agricultural pollutants throughout Europe is potentially concerning for the immune systems of exposed wildlife. Many substances used in agriculture have demonstrated immunotoxic and/or endocrine-disrupting effects that could potentially have implications for the susceptibility to and severity of infections. To study the effects of agricultural pollutants on infection of a well-studied natural reservoir study species, mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), I collected biological samples on a stopover population in Ottenby (southern Öland), Sweden to determine the overall lifetime of exposures (exposome) to agricultural pollutants by avian influenza virus (AIV) infected and uninfected individuals. From the total 161 sampled mallards, 37 were infected with AIV with five positives for highly pathogenic AIV H5N8 and an overall AIV prevalence of 23% within the sampled population. To determine specific agricultural pollutants in the region of the sampled mallards, I performed a literature review to identify frequently detected pesticides in the surface and groundwater of a largely agricultural region similar to the habitat occupied by sampled mallards and found 25 relevant substances. I also researched the relevant characteristics for exposure, toxicity, and suspected immunotoxic and/or endocrine-disrupting effects of the identified substances to determine whether they could potentially have an effect on AIV infection in mallards. 13 pesticides were identified to potentially have effects. To investigate the space use and utilization of the agricultural landscape for insight into potential exposure, I fitted continuous-time movement models to semi-variograms to estimate the autocorrelation structure and used autocorrelated kernel density estimation (AKDE) to calculate the 95% home range areas and extracted the proportion of agriculture within the area using high-resolution tracking data during two different years of movement for the Ottenby mallards and expanded the analysis to include high-resolution tracking data from other European mallards to determine comparability of the sampled population to the rest of the European mallards. Ottenby mallards utilized an area of ≈ 10.6 km2 and crossed the home range in ≈ 7 hours with ≈ 26% of the area consisting of agricultural land. In general, Ottenby mallards did not differ in their space use or home range behavior from the rest of the European mallards, and therefore the Ottenby mallards could be comparable to the rest of the European mallards. Based on the utilization of agriculture, mallards in the Netherlands could potentially have greater exposure to agricultural pollutants than the rest of the European mallards, but to confirm, further research needs to be done. Overall, mallards could potentially be exposed to many suspected immunotoxic and/or endocrine-disrupting pesticides based on their utilization of the agricultural landscape, which could affect the susceptibility and/or severity of the resulting AIV infection. Ultimately, careful consideration before use and monitoring of agricultural pollutants is necessary to protect wildlife. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. , p. 70
National Category
Ecology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-105806OAI: oai:DiVA.org:lnu-105806DiVA, id: diva2:1579252
Educational program
Akvatisk ekologi, masterprogram, 120 credits
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Available from: 2021-07-08 Created: 2021-07-08 Last updated: 2021-07-08Bibliographically approved

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