Badger Liver Elemental Concentrations
Publication Date
September 13, 2022
Creators
Description
This dataset contains the concentrations of 30 elements found in the livers of 448 badgers collected in the English Midlands in 2016 - 2017. All concentrations are in mg / kg dry weight.
Coverage (Spatial):
Cheshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and Northamptonshire
Coverage (Coordinates):
All badgers were collected within -3.508178, 51.522730: 0.427985, 53.700807/
Collection dates:
2016 - 2017
Subjects (LCSH)
Subjects
Subjects (JACS)
Subjects (LC)
Divisions
University of Nottingham, UK Campus::Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences::School of Veterinary Medicine & Science
Data type
Raw concentrations
Funders
Natural Resources Wales
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Grant Number
NE/L002604/1
SE3054 / OJEU 28406
Data collection method
Found badger carcasses were collected in England across Cheshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and Northamptonshire in 2016 – 2017, as part of a study on bovine tuberculosis in badgers (Figure 1; Swift et al., 2021). These badger carcasses were primarily collected on roadsides by citizen scientists. Liver samples, chosen because of their key role in element regulation and bioaccumulation (Kalisińska, 2019), were extracted from 448 of these badgers and freeze dried before being acid digested. Between 0.1 – 0.2 g of liver, along with 4 mL 70% HNO3 and 1 mL H2O2, were incubated on a hotplate block digester at 95 ˚C. After two hours, the samples were allowed to cool before being dispensed into plastic volumetric flasks, made up to 50 mL with MilliQ water (18.2 MΩ cm; Millipore Corporation, Darmstadt, Germany), and gently mixed. The samples were then left for at least ten minutes to allow for heavier material to settle to the bottom of the tube, and 10 mL of the supernatant solutions were decanted and stored at ambient temperature. The solutions were diluted 1-in-10 with MilliQ water prior to elemental analysis by ICP-MS. A certified reference material for trace elements in biological samples (BRC-185R Bovine Liver [trace elements]) was run for quality assurance purposes (recovery values for specific elements were: As [74.9%], Cd [103.9%], Cu [94.9%], Mn [99.1%], Pb [94.2%], Se [90.1%], and Zn [101.2%]). For each element, the operational limit of detection (LOD) was calculated as three times the standard deviation of the concentrations measured in 10 blank digestion samples run alongside the badger livers (Table 1). A value of 0.5*LOD was used in instances where the elemental concentration was lower than the LOD (Kushner, 1976). All concentrations were calculated as mg kg-1 dry weight; comparisons with published fresh weight concentrations were done assuming a liver water content of 72.1%, as described for European badgers by Kalisińska et al. (2009).
Resource languages
English
Publisher
The University of Nottingham
Date Issued
September 13, 2022
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
Badger Dry Weight Concentrations.xlsx
Description
Badger Dry Weight Concentrations
Size
214.12 KB
Format
Microsoft Excel XML
Checksum (MD5)
d3f2adc4b7bb32abb9b19ce24e38db45