Dorothy Zahor and Kenneth Glynn met at Eastern Michigan University, where they discovered their shared love for urban wildlife. Now, married and graduate students at Oregon State University, they’ve come together to help their communities better understand the potential of higher lead levels in soil. And they’re doing it with a familiar summer sight- the robin.
Zahor was first interested in lead levels in urban soil during her time at EMU. She wanted to see how much lead humans were unknowingly exposed to on a daily basis while in parks and other outdoor spaces.
“Humans and urban wildlife share the same spaces... If they are sharing our space, are they also sharing our pollutant exposure?” Zahor said.
Glynn hopped on the project after Zahor established it, affectionately calling it her “brain child.” It helped that the topics being explored also fell into his realm of interest.
“I was really interested in the interactions between humans and wildlife … how humans are impacting wildlife, and how we can understand better how wildlife is impacted by us, and hopefully find solutions to help us live more harmoniously,” Glynn said.
They decided to study robins in both Ypsilanti and Flint, and see their differences in blood lead levels. Robins were foragers, so they figured that by searching for worms, they were also ingesting small bits of soil. And they hypothesized that if there was lead in that soil, it would present itself in the robin’s blood.
Flint was chosen specifically because of its ongoing water crisis, which began in April of 2014 when the city changed water sources. This change led to increased levels of lead in the water, affecting the city’s nearly 80,000 residents. There were multiple calls to not drink the water in Flint, but Zahor and Glynn wanted to take it a step further, and look at the places where water was being used outdoors.
“There was not a lot of guidance on irrigating lawns or watering urban park systems or college campuses, so we were interested to see if that's a route of exposure of lead into the soil,” Zahor said.
The couple tested sites near the University of Michigan-Flint campus, and on site at EMU.
It turns out, robins that foraged in Flint soil had higher blood lead levels than robins that foraged in Ypsilanti. This led Zahor and Glynn to believe that there were higher levels of lead in Flint soil than there was in Ypsilanti soil, and the lead was close to the surface.
“Robins are only foraging in that top layer, really, so it's not like the lead was far away from exposure,” Zahor said.
The pair doesn’t believe that higher blood lead levels in robins should sound alarm bells to high blood lead levels in humans. Instead, they encourage people to be conscious while enjoying outdoor activities in urban areas, especially in places like Flint. The pair observed many people out playing frisbee, doing yoga, and playing with pets while they were conducting their research.
“I wouldn’t say it's necessarily, high levels in robins equals high levels in humans,” Zahor said. “It’s just showing that the lead is at a place where it can be exposed to those who engage with the soil.”
Throughout the project, the pair received a lot of important mentoring from professors in the Biology department.
“I don’t think I could say enough about how amazing the Biology faculty is [at EMU]," Glynn said. "They were very supportive, helped us feel confident in what we were doing, and helped us get to where we are. I don't think that would've happened if we didn't have that supportive mentorship."
Both Zahor and Glynn are now working on different projects, however they would be interested in continuing the robin research if funding allowed. No matter the project, the pair enjoys helping each other perform experiments, read drafts, and more.
“There's always extra hands needed for every project, so it's nice when I can be like, ‘Hey can you help me?’... so it’s really nice to have this partnership,” Zahor said.
“We’ll help each other all the time … we work well together, which is awesome,” Glynn said.
To read more about their research, please click here.
