South Louisiana crude oil and DDE in the diet of mallard hens: Effects on reproduction and duckling survival.

Abstract

The reproductive performance of precocial birds fed an environmental contaminant often is measured in terms of egg production, fertility, hatchability, eggshell thickness, and survival of unstressed young. However, no one, to our knowledge, has examined the ability of offspring, produced by females fed an environmental pollutant, to survive under energetically poor conditions. Young precocial birds often are subjected to chilling and starvation upon hatching and the time immediately posthatching is probably the most crucial period in the ultimate determination of the number of new individuals recruited into a population. Crude oil and DDE were selected as environmental pollutants for study because of their widespread occurrence and significance in the environment. South Louisiana crude oil (SLCO) and DDE fed to mallard hens have been shown to cause significant declines in reproductive success by decreasing egg production, hatchability, and eggshell thickness. In this paper the effects of dietary SLCO and DDE upon the reproductive performance of mallard hens are documented and also the reduced ability of offspring produced by these hens to survive under energetically poor conditions.