McGill University
Candidat Ph.D.
superviseur(e): Jessica Head
Doug Crump, Environment and Climate Change Canada
Début: 2021-09-01

Projet

Understanding the effect of pollutants on the survival and development of bird embryos
UV Absorbents (UVAs) are chemicals used in sunscreen and a large variety of plastic and beverage food products. They protect these products and our skin from UV radiation damage. These chemicals leach into the water and from the plastics they coat, and they’re now ubiquitous in the environment (water, air, sediment, dust). They also build up in different animals’ build fat, muscle and organs. They were even found in human blood and breast milk. Recent studies show they have been toxic to different mammalian and aquatic species by causing problems in development, reproduction and survival, but they haven’t been tested in birds yet. Given birds are exposed to the environment through diving in water to fish and eating plastic, we must understand the level of hazard UVAs could pose to them. I am especially interested in the early life stage of birds, since they would be more sensitive to chemicals and are at higher risk of dying or having developmental and reproductive problems, and the death of birds early in their life stage could potentially doom future generations and the entire population. Therefore, my research focuses on testing the effect of common and environmentally prevalent UVAs on the embryos domestic and wild bird species to determine if they pose a threat at their current level. I will analyze physical effects as well as molecular effects through analyzing changes in the expression of genes that could then affect the function of organs in the bird and ultimately impact its development and survival. This study will concretize the risk UVAs and give governments grounds to regulate corporations producing UVAs in the thousands of tonnes so that bird populations don’t disappear in the coming decades.

Mots-clés

UV Stabilizers and filters , Gene expression analysis, environmental risk assessment, avian toxicology