What is it about?
Gulls have been expanding their breeding colonies to the urban centres as the coastal habitats change and the urbanisation increases. Gull chicks are thus good for biomonitoring urban contamination, as they are often feed with food/prey caught in the vicinities of the colony. Contaminants like heavy metals were already reported to affect the immune and endocrine system of wild seabirds, including gulls. However, there was a gap of knowledge on whether or not these contaminants could impact seabirds at early-life stages. Therefore, we assessed how mercury and other metals and metalloids (lead, arsenic, copper, iron, aluminium, selenium, etc) could be related to impaired physiological and health condition in urban-dwelling gull chicks early after hatching.
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This page is a summary of: Mercury and other trace elements in gull chicks from a highly urbanised environment: effects on chick growth, physiology, and health condition, Environmental Research, March 2026, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2026.123701.
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