Blood UV absorbents in urban breeding herring gulls: Annual environmental conditions, not anthropogenic habitat use, drive exposure
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Urban-adapted wildlife foraging in coastal areas are exposed to mixtures of synthetic contaminants, including ultraviolet absorbents (UVAs), such as benzotriazole UV stabilizers (BZT-UVs) and organic UV filters (UVFs). Herring gulls ( Larus argentatus ), known for their foraging plasticity, are particularly susceptible to UVA exposure due to their reliance on anthropogenic habitats, including landfills, known as sinks of products containing UVAs. However, the impact of foraging habitat on exposure is unknown. We aimed to investigate this relationship in gulls along the St. Lawrence estuary near the industrial center of Québec City (QC, Canada) over two breeding seasons (2023 and 2024). Eight BZT-UVs and five UVFs were measured in the plasma and red blood cells (RBC) of breeding adults. We detected UVAs in both blood compartments of the gulls sampled, with two BZT-UVs (UV-328 and UV-P) and two UVFs (BP-3 and HMS) being the most prevalent. Year was a strong predictor for most frequently detected UVA concentrations, while both year and temperature influenced ΣBZT-UVs, ΣUVFs, HMS, and UV-P. Specifically, one year had colder environmental conditions, which contributed to higher concentrations. This study is the first to demonstrate blood compartmentalization of UVAs between plasma and RBC, with higher concentrations found in RBC. Despite UVA exposure among all individuals and predominant foraging in anthropogenic terrestrial habitats, primarily agricultural fields, we found no association between habitat types and concentrations. Our findings suggest that UVA pollution is pervasive across diverse anthropogenic habitats, highlighting the complex pathways of exposure in urban-adapted wildlife and the need for broader monitoring. • First detection of both BZT-UVs and UVFs in wild avian blood samples. • UV-328, UV-P, BP-3, and HMS were the dominant UV-related contaminants detected. • Agricultural fields were the predominant foraging habitat exploited. • Landfill and agricultural foraging did not influence contaminant levels. • Interannual variation in weather drove contaminant concentration.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".