Emerging Contaminants in Avian Ecology: Exposure, Biological Effects and Conservation Implications

Introduction

Research on environmental contaminants is increasingly important for understanding how pollution affects birds across individuals, populations, and ecosystems. Birds occupy diverse trophic positions, use a wide range of habitats, and often move across breeding, migratory, and non-breeding areas, making them valuable indicators of environmental contamination. Because birds are highly sensitive to environmental change, through shifts in exposure routes, foraging conditions, physiology, and behavior, they can serve as a good environmental indicator species for detecting both current and emerging contamination signals at ecological scales.

Meanwhile, advances in analytical methods allow assessment of a broad range of pollutants, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), pesticides, antibiotics resistance gene (ARG), flame retardants, endocrine-active chemicals, metals and metalloids, fluorides and other inorganic contaminants, engineered nanomaterials, and micro- and nanoplastics. These developments provide new opportunities to link contaminant exposure with avian foraging ecology, migration, physiology, reproduction, behavior, and population processes. Importantly, clarifying how emerging contaminants affect birds will also improve our ability to predict ecological consequences and to prioritize monitoring and mitigation actions for broader biodiversity and ecosystem health.

However, critical knowledge gaps remain across bird groups, habitats, geographic regions, and contaminant classes. Terrestrial birds and particulate contaminants remain relatively understudied, while long-term and annual-cycle studies are still limited. Birds are also exposed to complex mixtures of chemical and particulate pollutants. Greater integration of contaminant monitoring with biological responses, population assessment, and conservation is therefore needed.

To address these gaps, we propose the virtual special issue “Environmental Contaminants in Avian Ecology: Exposure, Biological Effects, and Conservation Implications.” We invite original research, reviews, and methodological advances on both emerging and established contaminants, with an emphasis on exposure pathways, biological effects, ecological processes, biomonitoring, and conservation applications in birds.

Topics

The issue welcomes submissions on, but is not limited to, the following topics:

• Emerging contaminants in wild birds
• Spatial and temporal patterns of contaminant exposure
• Micro- and nanoplastics in birds 
• PFAS, pesticides, and emerging industrial chemicals
• Contaminants in avian food webs
• Diet, foraging ecology, and contaminant exposure
• Contaminants across the avian annual cycle
• Toxicology in birds: exposure-dose-response and mechanistic effects
• Physiological, reproductive, endocrine, genetic, and behavioral effects
• Contaminant mixtures and multiple environmental stressors
• Comparative ecotoxicology: how avian responses differ from other taxa
• Birds as indicators of environmental contamination
• Contaminant exposure and bird conservation
• Advances in avian contaminant monitoring and assessment

Submission instructions

All submissions to this Virtual Special Issue will undergo the full standard peer-review process of the journal Avian Research. Manuscripts should be formatted according to the Guide for Authors of the journal and submitted via the online editorial system. Remember to choose the short title of this Virtual Special Issue: “Emerging Contaminants in Avian Ecology” when submitting the manuscript.

For more information, please contact the editorial office: avianresearch@bjfu.edu.cn

Submission deadline

31 August 2027

Guest editors