While environmental officers could measure the loss of animal life due to oiling in the aftermath of a spill, a gap existed in their ability to track the health outcomes for wildlife that managed to survive these catastrophic changes to their environment.<\/p>\n At Carleton University, scientists have bridged this gap by creating a new tool to monitor the impacts of oil spills on wildlife in this expansive polar region. Using genetic code to monitor the impacts of oil spills on surviving seabirds, former master’s student Yasmeen Zahaby developed a tool called a ToxChip which measures the health impacts of seabirds at a DNA level.<\/p>\n “A lot of these birds seemed healthy on the outside, but we wanted to understand how oil spills, or any kind of contaminant, impact them on a sub-lethal level,” says Zahaby.<\/p>\n Contaminants can lead to a myriad of health problems in seabirds.<\/p>\n “Some genes are important for immune function, some are important for balancing calcium in the body or balancing hormones,” explains Zahaby.<\/p>\n “All of these biological pathways can be impacted by oil spills and contaminants.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Genetic technology has evolved in leaps and bounds in recent years, such that mapping a seabird’s genome and subsequently tracking health impacts is now possible.<\/p>\n “There were people thinking about this problem for a long time, but they didn’t have the tools to do it,” says Jennifer Provencher<\/a>, adjunct professor in Carleton’s Department of Biology<\/a>, who supervised Zahaby’s work.<\/p>\n To detect the impact of contaminants on the seabirds, Zahaby first had to build their genetic profile, as limited information existed for some of these species.<\/p>\n “We don’t know as much about their genes, so I had to make an educated guess as to what their genetic sequence would be,” says Zahaby.<\/p>\n “I looked at species that have already been documented and found the regions of the gene that they shared.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Once the genes of healthy animals were sequenced, Zahaby examined the samples of surviving seabirds that had been impacted by a 3,000-litre oil spill. Investigating the condition of the genes using the ToxChip and comparing it to contaminants found in liver samples illuminated the impacts of the spill on the seabirds.<\/p>\n “Things outside of the body, like contaminants, can change gene expression,” says Zahaby. “We can measure with the ToxChip if the gene is turned on or off \u2013 and by how much.”<\/p>\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/challenge.carleton.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/seabirds-and-oil-spills-1200x700-3.jpg\")
It’s Genetic: Mapping DNA to Measure Contaminant Impacts<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
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