Development of seabird foot ring for POPs adsorbent and its application to marine environmental monitoring

• Project/Area Number: 26550005
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Environmental dynamic analysis
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
• Principal Investigator: YAMASHITA Rei 東京農工大学, (連合)農学研究科(研究院), 研究員 (60599629)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2015)
• Budget Amount: ¥3,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥900,000); Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,690,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥390,000); Fiscal Year 2014: ¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000)
• Keywords: 残留性有機汚染物質 / 海鳥 / バイオロギング

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In order to monitor Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in marine environment, we attached plastic foot ring for POPs adsorbent and GPS logger for seabirds which use different foraging areas, and analyzed for POPs in rings and GPS tracking data. To assess the differences of sea areas, we attached plastic rings and GPS loggers at Awa island (Niigata Pref.) and Funakoshi Oshima island (Iwate Pref.). POPs concentrations in plastic rings which were recovered from Awa island were higher than Funakoshi Oshima island. POPs concentrations of foot rings were reflected the differences in the foraging areas of seabirds. These results were consistent with previous studies. We demonstrated the usefulness of plastic foot ring of seabirds as a convenience POPs monitoring tool in marine environment.