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- Title
Skeletal Pathology in White Storks ( Ciconia ciconia ) Associated With Heavy Metal Contamination in Southwestern Spain.
- Authors
Smits, Judit E. G.; Bortolotti, Gary R.; Baos, Raquel; Blas, Julio; Hiraldo, Fernando; Qianle Xie
- Abstract
In 1998, a mine tailings dyke in southwestern Spain broke, flooding the Agrio-Guadiamar river system with acid tailings up to the borders of one of the largest breeding colony of white storks in the western Palearctic, Dehesa de Abajo. Over the following years, a high proportion of nestlings developed leg defects, prompting this study. Ten fledglings with leg deformities from the spill area were compared with 11 normal storks of the same year class from another region far from the spill. However, metals were analyzed as a continuum rather than by site, as reference birds also contained high levels of metals. Gross pathology of the legs was supported by histopathology, which showed that bone remodeling activity was greater in the deformed storks, which also had more irregular subperiosteal bone, and tended to have higher residual islets of cartilage in their metaphyses, which, in turn were related to metal contaminant residues. Both Ca and P in bone were affected independently by metals. Deformed birds had lower serum bone alkaline phosphatase. Bone malformations, measured by leg asymmetry, was only partially explained by bone metals, indicating that a combination of factors was involved with the abnormal development in these young storks.
- Subjects
WHITE stork; LEG abnormalities; ALKALINE phosphatase; BONE abnormalities; BIRDS
- Publication
Toxicologic Pathology, 2005, Vol 33, Issue 4, p441
- ISSN
0192-6233
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1080/01926230590953097