Below is a student response to a research topic related to the chapter titled “Falling From the Sky”:
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Pesticides, Partridges, and… Cereal?
A blog post by New Paltz Ornithology student Callie Barth-Dwyer
“Organic! Non-GMO! USDA Approved!” Phrases like these are ubiquitous in grocery stores across the United States, urging us – the consumers – to purchase naturally grown, pesticide free products. The United States has made an effort to pass laws and regulations regarding pesticide use within the country, however a lot of our produce is still imported from other countries who are not caught up on the regulation of pesticides. We all know that “pesticides are bad!” by now, but how do they affect us when we eat strawberries in our cereal while we drink our morning cup of coffee? And how do they affect birds? It’s been found that produce grown with pesticides can pass on those chemicals – not just to your own body, but also to the bodies of organisms who live around and off of these plants. Birds especially are susceptible to the effects of pesticides, as they often feed off of the farms where pesticides are used, eating seeds, fruits, and insects that have been affected.
In April 2016, Ana Lopez-Antia and her colleagues published a paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology about their studies of partridges and pesticides on a few farms in Spain. Soon before this paper was published, Spain had begun to recognize the ramifications of the practice of coating seeds with pesticides before they are sown on pollinators and bird species who liked to consume these seeds. Lopez-Antia and her colleagues set out to assess the risk of these pesticide-coated seeds on birds, specifically the red-legged partridge as they are known to eat cereal seeds (such as barley, oat, and wheat) and are known to winter in the area in Spain that was studied. The researched hypothesized that these partridges would contain toxic levels of pesticides in their bodies and digestive tracts if they were feeding on the cereal farms.
The researchers studied the fields and found many species of birds, including the red-legged partridges, eating cereal seeds off of the ground that had been coated with pesticides before sowing. They then went to the lab with partridge specimens donated by a hunting association in order to search for evidence of pesticides in the body. By opening up the specimens, they found that the infected cereal seeds were in fact in the gizzards of these partridges, making up more than half of the biomass of the gizzard contents. By using positive and negative ions, the researches then tested for the presence of pesticides, and found evidence of several types of pesticides, especially fungicides, in the body of the samples.
This table from the study lists the types of pesticides found in the specimens studied and the number (N+) of samples each chemical was found in.
While this study didn’t necessarily test the effects of pesticides in the body and in our food, it certainly confirmed that pesticides used on produce make their way into the body of the organism that consumes it, be that insects, birds, or humans. This discovery is critical in the further research of how pesticides can potentially harm our lives and bodies as well as the lives and bodies of other species that may be critical to our local and global environments. Many bird species live and migrate (from the United States!) to places that continue to use harmful pesticides on their crops which could damage or kill large numbers of species. To help protect yourself and your feathered friends, consider looking into buying local, pesticide-free produce and researching organizations who are working to limit harmful pesticide use and protect bird species who may be at risk.