Project description
Threats to East Africa’s lions from pollution
In the vast expanse of East Africa, the regal lion decreasing populations are facing a silent menace – pollution. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has identified pollution as a looming threat to these majestic creatures. However, little is known about the pathways of metal pollution from mining to lions. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the LEOTHREAT project will investigate metal exposure in lions and their primary prey near mining sites and pristine reference areas. The project will evaluate also non-invasive fur sampling techniques as a biomonitoring tool for metal exposure. Overall, its inquiry centres on exposure routes for metals in East African lion populations, with the hypothesis that mining sites may inadvertently expose these iconic animals to harmful metals.
Objective
The lion population of East Africa is declining due to several reasons, and pollution listed as one of the current threats by IUCN. However, no data on exposure routes of pollution from mining on lions in East Africa are available and metal pollution in terrestrial ecosystems in East Africa is understudied. The current proposal aims to fill this gap by looking at both metal exposure in lions and their main prey close to mining areas and in reference areas away from suspected pollution. In addition, non-invasive sampling of fur will be assessed as biomonitoring tool for metal exposure. Finally, we will provide recommendations to local authorities and communicate our findings to local communities. This project will give me the opportunity to apply my previous knowledge on metal pollution in wildlife and to gain new expertise working in African ecosystems and with African communities, as well as gain new practical skills, such as sampling large carnivores. Furthermore, my supervisors at the Norwegian University of Science in Technology (NTNU) provide interdisciplinary expertise within ecotoxicology (Prof. Jaspers) and conservation ecology (Prof. Røskaft).
LEOTHREAT’s main research question is: What are the main exposure routes for metals in East African lion populations? I hypothesize that lions inhabiting mining sites may be exposed to metals due to the ingestion of contaminated prey and water. The exposure to toxic metals may cause adverse effects on their health, thus contributing to population declines. Me and local collaborators will study metal exposure by sampling blood and fur from lions inhabiting areas close to mines as well as from lions ranging areas unsuspected to be contaminated.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences health sciences public health
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences environmental sciences pollution
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01
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7491 Trondheim
Norway
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