NSF Award
2217429
Urbanization is increasing globally, and one of the major ways in which humans are altering the environment is through increased pollution. Heavy metals are one type of pollutant that is known to cause harm to organisms, including humans. For example, heavy metals—which include elements like lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, and many others—are toxic even at very low concentrations. Heavy metals are released into the environment by activities such as construction and transportation, and so are commonly believed to be found in greater concentration in urban or human-impacted areas than in rural locales. This project evaluates that assumption by monitoring the accumulation of heavy metals in the blood and feathers of a common bird, the European starling, sampled from locations across 10 Georgia counties that range from predominantly urban to predominantly rural. The research also focuses on understanding the effects of experienced levels of heavy metals on the physiology and behavior of the birds, to understand the sublethal effects of exposure. Ultimately, this project will inform our understanding of typical heavy metal exposure, its association with urbanization, and the consequences of that exposure for bird behavior and physiology. The results of this study will lead to new hypotheses about the potential effects of heavy metal exposure in humans that inhabit the same areas. The project will further benefit society by training diverse students—including undergraduate and graduate students—through creating paid research opportunities in metropolitan Atlanta, as well as incorporating research into the classroom at Kennesaw State University. The research team will engage with high school students through visits to classrooms across the urban-to-rural study sites to share research findings and test school soil heavy metal concentrations. <br/><br/>This project addresses three knowledge gaps on the links among urbanization, heavy metal pollution, animal behavior and physiology, and public health. PI Guindre-Parker will characterize heavy metal exposure along an urban-to-rural gradient by screening blood and feather tissues of free-living European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Starling populations will be sampled across 10 counties in Georgia that differ in their degree of urbanization, including metropolitan Atlanta. Next, PI Guindre-Parker will examine the sublethal effects of heavy metal exposure on the physiology and behavioral coping styles of starlings. Methods include immune and endocrine assays to characterize physiology, as well as open field tests to assess behavior. Importantly, this work will explore how exposure to multiple heavy metals simultaneously shapes animal phenotypes under free-living conditions. Finally, PI Guindre-Parker will investigate whether starlings can serve in biomonitoring heavy metals via mapping results from starlings onto published data in humans. Heavy metal poisoning continues to be a concern in many Georgia counties, including in metro-Atlanta, and results from this work would benefit ongoing initiatives to monitor heavy metals in the state. This award would also create 2 fully funded graduate positions, 3 paid undergraduate research positions, and would allow 144 biology majors to participate in classroom research via course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) in PI Guindre-Parker’s annual Vertebrate Zoology course.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
