ARTICLES
Stimulus Material for depth studies, courtesy of Macquarie University (continued)
Sparrow in a lead mine: birds adapt to life in contaminated areas
A new study of house sparrows’ genes has found the first evidence of animals adapting to lead contamination in
heavily polluted areas of Australia.
House sparrows have lived in the mining towns of Broken Hill, NSW and Mount Isa, Queensland for around 100
and 50 years respectively, providing a unique opportunity to examine how the introduced species has adapted
to these environments.
Led by researchers from Macquarie University’s Departments of Biological Sciences and Environmental
Sciences, the study compared the genomic data of sparrows from these areas of high lead concentrations with
sparrows from other regional and urban centres.
The study, published in Science of The Total Environment, found 12 genetic variants in the birds from the mining
areas that have been previously associated with lead exposure in laboratory studies.
The presence of these outlier genes suggests the sparrows in Broken Hill and Mount Isa have adapted to avoid
the uptake of lead into the body and to counter its negative impacts on neural and bone development.
“Adaptation to pollutants is vital to the future health of ecosystems in areas affected by human activity like
mining, but we currently have very limited understanding of how animals can evolve to mitigate the negative
impacts,” says lead author Samuel Andrew.
“House sparrows generally live in areas with humans, and have been in some mining towns for up to 50
generations, so they’re a perfect example to start analysing how wildlife more generally might be changing to
cope with a contaminated environment”.
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Syllabus link: Earth and environmental science - pollution
FACULTY OF SCIENCE
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 67 NO 4