Exposure of arctic seabirds to pollutants: what is the role played by individual migratory movements and non-breeding distribution?

Understanding bird contamination during this specific period is nonetheless crucial, as they can also be exposed to high pollutant levels which could affect their survival and population dynamics. Hence, the aim of my PhD is to improve our knowledge of arctic seabird contamination – mostly to Hg – during their non-breeding time and further understand the origin of this contamination. To this end, I will study Hg concentrations in blood (indicator of short term contamination) and feathers (indicators of long-term contamination) samples collected from several species breeding through the Arctic and overwintering in different areas of the Northern Atlantic and Pacific. The common eider will be the focal species for this particular field work in Kongsfjorden during the summer 2019. Most populations of common eiders are resident all year round, but the Kongsfjorden population is migrating, and winter and mix with individuals from resident populations in Iceland and North Norway (Hanssen et al. 2016). I aim to sample blood and feathers from eiders that have been carrying a geolocator -a data logger which tracks the movements of the bird.