5 votes

Swedish study finds surprising number of environmental pollutants in hedgehogs, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and heavy metals

Posted by mycketforvirrad
Tags: pollution.ground, sweden, wildlife, hedgehogs.european, pollutants, pesticides, flame retardants, polychlorinated biphenyls, metals.heavy, lead, toxicology.eco, ecosystems, urban, researchers, studies, lund university, author.maria hansson, source.lu
https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/surprising-number-environmental-pollutants-hedgehogs

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Title
Surprising number of environmental pollutants in hedgehogs
Published
Apr 3 2025
Word count
717 words

4 comments

  1. [4]
    Landhund
    Link
    While I very much don't want hedgehogs (or any animal) to be poisoned by toxic substances leaking into the environment, I find it very peculiar that they only report the presence of those elements...

    While I very much don't want hedgehogs (or any animal) to be poisoned by toxic substances leaking into the environment, I find it very peculiar that they only report the presence of those elements and chemicals, but not the quantity or concentration. The only quantitative statements were in regards to lead and other heavy metals. Are we talking about milligrammes, micrograms, parts per million?

    4 votes
    1. Toric
      Link Parent
      Yup. technicaly, Uranium can naturally be found in all life, in PPB or even PPT ranges.

      Yup. technicaly, Uranium can naturally be found in all life, in PPB or even PPT ranges.

      3 votes
    2. [2]
      Raspcoffee
      Link Parent
      The paper itself does present the amount, but to be honest - do we know how much a buildup in hedgehogs are correlated with the concentration in the environment? This might actually be the first...

      The paper itself does present the amount, but to be honest - do we know how much a buildup in hedgehogs are correlated with the concentration in the environment? This might actually be the first time I've heard of hedgehogs for this. Birds is pretty often used though, iirc.

      The study does show differences between urban and rural areas which is very interesting, but not surprising. Quickly looking through their references there are some research on plastics in mammals, though. As I'm looking through the paper itself, at the bottom of 4.1 & 4.2 there are some other papers.

      It does make sense to use hedgehogs now that I think about it, they eat a lot of insects and are more in contact with soil than birds. Though as someone who absolutely adores hedgehogs and volunteered for a shelter for dem spikey bois in the past, this just makes me sad.

      2 votes
      1. Landhund
        Link Parent
        Thanks for linking the study! I've had a quick look at the liver concentration and they are all in the parts per billion range (except maybe one compound that goes above 1000 ng/g in two of the 12...

        Thanks for linking the study! I've had a quick look at the liver concentration and they are all in the parts per billion range (except maybe one compound that goes above 1000 ng/g in two of the 12 hedgehogs). And that's dry weight, wet weight is looks to be about 1/5 to 1/4 of dry weight. And that's the concentration in the liver, which was chosen specifically because it is the biggest bio-accumulator for these compounds.

        So while I certainly understand why it is important to study the occurrence of these compounds and elements in the biosphere, I'm not very worried about the levels reported.

        4 votes