Winter and inter annual Hg contamination of seabirds

Months of work, three rounds of revision, two rounds of proofs checking…. This was the easiest story of of my PhD, but also the hardest paper I worked on.
The idea was simple: are seabirds consistently visiting the same wintering ground every year and did that affect their contamination with Hg? But behind this simple idea, setting up the methods was complicated and explaining it, even harder.
But with the help of the co-authors, the reviewers and the editors, we managed to have this story finally out and I could not be happier to see it published.

Another reason I am excited about this paper is because I am finally starting to publish the core of my PhD, which was about seabirds migration and their the non-breeding (winter) contamination with Hg. So this paper is part of ARCTOX, but also SEATRACK, a Norwegian project that aims at mapping seabird distribution through the North Atlantic.
Over the next three months, at least two other exciting studies should be published on this related topic. So stay tuned. In the meantime, here are the infographic I always do to accompany my work. You can find it in English, en Français and something new… på Norsk.

Hope you will enjoy the hard work and results of this study.

The study can be found here
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03268466/
https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/MEPS/SEA/p_av6/

Infographics

In english

En Français

på Norsk

Seasonality in Hg concentration in Arctic seabirds

Even far from intensive anthropogenic activities, concentrations of mercury (Hg), neurotoxic affecting human and animal health, are measured in the Arctic. The highest concentrations are measured in top predators such as seabirds, found at the end of the food chains. Most of the knowledge regarding Hg contamination of Arctic seabirds is about the breeding period, when seabirds aggregate in large colonies, in land, where they are more easily accessible. However, the non-breeding period, being a critical part of the year (e.g. light conditions, prey availability, storms), have to be studied to fully understand the risks associated with pollutant and seabirds survival. In the present study, we used nine species of Arctic seabirds at the pan-Arctic scale and specific feathers informing about Hg contamination during both breeding and non-breeding periods. Our results show that most seabirds are exposed to higher contamination during the non-breeding period. We also found spatial variations with different concentrations between the Pacific and Atlantic Arctic. In addition, seabirds breeding in the West Atlantic seem to be exposed to higher toxicity risks than population breeding anywhere else in the Arctic.
Here is the infographic summarising those results. The paper can be find here: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02949049/document

The 20 most charismatic species

Our last paper about charismatic species has been published this summer. The same day I landed in Greenland for the fieldwork of my PhD (more about that really soon), without any internet connexion.
But I have not forgotten at all to make the infography of this paper. I just needed some time to landed back in France!

So here it is. The infography regarding the 20 most charismatic species.
The paper is available here : https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0199149

The paradoxical extinction of the most charismatic animals

I am really excited to share this work with you. With the help of researchers in conservation and economics, we came up with this great study about the paradoxical extinction of the most charismatic animals.
There is another personal paradox in this study. During my studies, I never attended to study conservation of these big mammals. Why? Because I thought they were all doing quite fine because of all the attention they got. So I was more willing to work on less charismatic species. Well, I got it wrong and I am really happy that I have been part of this work.

Here are the infography related to this paper. As usual, you can find it in french and in english. The original study can be find here :

http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003997

Enjoy your reading and do not hesitate to ask questions.

 

 

100 articles every ecologists should read!

Hey you, young ecologist! Did you ever wanted to know which papers you should read in order to have a broad idea of what ecology is?

Well, go have a look on this paper! You will find the 100 articles that « old » scientists advice you to read!

This paper is from Franck Courchamp and Corey Bradshaw and is available here : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0370-9.pdf

Time for a Definition!

Here is the perfect gift for friends and family who still do not get what our job is!!!

 

Et une version française, une!

 

Already one year since I started my first « payed » job in science (we won’t talk about french salary in research 😉 – at least not today ).
I learned A LOT and in addition of working on Franck’s projects, I decided to work on one of mine : sharing science.

Do you know how work research? Well you need to publish articles in scientific journals, only in english and with crazy vocabulary. Why do I say crazy vocabulary? Because scientists always use terms that only scientists (working on the same research area) can understand. So if you are not a big fan of science, this is not sexy to read. At all.

Which is a pity, because what we are doing is awesome. Really. I am serious :D. And to convince you, I will develop my project of « sharing science » : for any paper I will work on, I will create a one page work where I will summarize the most important information.I hope you will like the idea and learn some new staff.

Well, actually the idea also comes from to the fact that I want to be sure that friends and family know more about what I am doing all day long : No guys, I am not only catching birds in the forest 😉

Here is the first one. Hope you will like it!

oh and by the way, for lazy french, it is available both in French and English!!!

English version:

Version française :

Picture: Specimen from Brackenridge Field Laboratory, Austin, Texas, USA. Public domain image by Alex Wild, produced by the University of Texas “Insects Unlocked” program.