RESEARCH ARTICLE Soil features in rookeries of Antarctic penguins reveal sea to land biotransport of chemical pollutants Anna C. Santamans1,2, Rafael Boluda2, Antonio Picazo1, Carlos Gil3, JoaquõÂn Ramos- Miras3, Pablo Tejedo4, Luis R. Pertierra5, Javier Benayas4, Antonio Camacho1* 1 Instituto Cavanilles de Biodiversidad y BiologõÂa Evolutiva, Universitat de Valencia, Paterna, Spain, 2 Departament de Biologia Vegetal, Facultat de Farmàcia, Universitat de València, Burjassot, València, Spain, 3 Escuela PoliteÂcnica Superior, Departamento de AgronomõÂa, Universidad de AlmerõÂa, AlmerõÂa, a1111111111 Spain, 4 Departamento de EcologõÂa, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad AutoÂnoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, a1111111111 5 Departamento de BiogeografõÂa y Cambio Global, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Spain a1111111111 a1111111111 *
[email protected] a1111111111 Abstract The main soil physical-chemical features, the concentrations of a set of pollutants, and the OPEN ACCESS soil microbiota linked to penguin rookeries have been studied in 10 selected sites located at Citation: Santamans AC, Boluda R, Picazo A, Gil C, the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula (Maritime Antarctica). This study Ramos-Miras J, Tejedo P, et al. (2017) Soil aims to test the hypothesis that biotransport by penguins increases the concentration of pol- features in rookeries of Antarctic penguins reveal sea to land biotransport of chemical pollutants. lutants, especially heavy metals, in Antarctic soils, and alters its microbiota. Our results PLoS ONE 12(8): e0181901. https://doi.org/ show that penguins do transport certain chemical elements and thus cause accumulation in 10.1371/journal.pone.0181901 land areas through their excreta. Overall, a higher penguin activity is associated with higher Editor: Yan Ropert-Coudert, Centre National de la organic carbon content and with higher concentrations of certain pollutants in soils, espe- Recherche Scientifique, FRANCE cially cadmium, cooper and arsenic, as well as zinc and selenium.