Paramount Roles of Wild Birds as Bioindicators of Contamination

Bioindicators are species used to appraise the health conditions of the environment or ecosystem and they are capable of determining the environmental integrity using their functions and populations. In preserving and managing the natural surroundings, it is imperative to monitor the condition of many components of the ecological unit. Under normal circumstance, conservation advocators would be more interested to examine all properties of concern within a natural ecosystem [1] resources required for ecological evaluation are usually limited coupled with vast nature of natural ecosystem. Due to this constrain only an undersized fraction of these properties are usually examined. In most cases physical, chemical or biological properties that indicate the status of un-sample parameters of the environment may be monitored in the absence of all-inclusive data on entire ecosystems by conservation advocators. Thereby stimulating selection of individual species or groups of species to serve as biological indicators. For example black-headed oriole with a conservation status of least concern may be selected. However, the population seems to be decreasing due to habitat loss and other factors [2]. The condition of ecosystems can be measured using characteristics, such as presence or absence, abundance, density, mortality rate and breeding success [1] of wild birds. Apart from that, the status of other taxa, the presence and impacts of stressors on birds and patterns of biological diversity may also be put into consideration. Therefore, bird diversity is an indicator of species richness of natural ecosystem. According to Carignan & Villard [3]; Chambers [1] the ovenbird Seiurus aurocapillus, is a good indicator of closed-canopy, mature forests with a sparse understory. This simply means the presence or absence of the said species is considered to be a good indicator of the presence or absence of closed-canopy, mature forests with a sparse understory. Due to the associated relationship over time, ovenbird can be used to measure the level of deforestation and habitat destruction. If the term indicator is properly examined, it simply refers to value and level, with a clear indication of occurrence of a factor under consideration and they are normally developed within the perspective of basic frameworks of application in the course of evaluation of natural ecosystem. The basic components of an indicator comprises of parameter derived from combinations of more than a few parameters which provide essential information about the frequency of occurrence of evaluated resources with the aim of quantifying it present properties in time and space to determine its effects on the environment, health conditions of the population, ecosystem structure and the productivity [4]. Therefore, it is imperative for conservation managers to spot the measurable parameters required to support sustainability of a given population. Therefore, this review aims to give all-inclusive précis of key roles of wild birds as bioindicators of contamination using theoretical and empirical evidence provided in different literature and its effects on conservation. Over the years, ecologists have used wild birds as indices for heavy metal pollution, were the birds able to measure the effects of heavy metal concentration in the Volume 2 Issue 6 2017