Do POPs affect stress- and reproductive hormone levels in Glaucous gulls (Larus hyperboreus)from Kongsfjorden,Svalbard. RiS ID 5267

Glaucous gulls, between 20-30 individuals, will be captured for blood samples during a five weeks period of field work (June-July, 2013) in Kongsfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen, with a base in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. The capturing of birds will be carried out using trigger nest traps that will capture the birds by its legs when it flies off. The traps are set out in the nests as the parental birds spend time away from the nest. Before placing the nest traps in the nests, we remove the eggs and put them in a heated bag to prevent them from being crushed during the capturing and to keep the temperature stable. After capturing we will have three minutes from when we capture the birds till the blood should be withdrawn. This is to detect the baseline l evels of stress hormones. We want to locate gulls with loggers attached during the summers of 2010- 2012 that may give further information on where these birds spend the winter. Samples from 2010-2013 will be analyzed for both chemical composition of POPs , stabile isotopes, reproductive and stress hormones. Data form the blood plasma will be connected to the logger data. The sampling of blood plasma and logger data will be made in collaboration with Kjetil Sagerup from Akvaplan-NIVA under supervision from Geir Wing Gabrielsen, Norwegian Polar institute (NP).