Abstract

Present paper describes the comparative analysis of heavy metals toxicity for the four selected passerines in the rural and urban habitats of Faisalabad, Pakistan. Of these, the rural habitats were the villages of Faisalabad viz., Bhaiwala, Burala canal rest house, Satiana canal bungalow and Rakh Branch. The urban habitats were the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad campus and Postgraduate Agricultural Research Station. Body tissues viz., liver, muscles, kidney and heart were analyzed through the atomic absorption spectrophotometer to detect the heavy metals viz., zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), lead (Pb), copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd) and cobalt (Co) in different proportions. For ten-sample size of rock dove in village Bhaiwala, Zn concentrations in liver were 3.73 ± 1.94 mg/kg, for Mn 3.60 ± 2.49 mg/kg, for Pb the concentration was 3.34 ± 2.87 mg/kg, while for the Cu and Cd and Co were 1.98 ± 1.95 mg/kg, 1.76 ± 1.31 mg/kg and 0.56 ± 0.21 mg/kg, respectively. Invariably, similar heavy metals values were also recorded for the other village and urban habitats of Faisalabad. Although, the Zn remained highest incorporated heavy metal in the designated body tissues of the sampled birds, the other metals were also detected in traces. Of the passerines, house crow and house sparrow were more affected due to heavy metal toxicity than the other birds while Zn and Pb were the most prevalent heavy metal in different body parts. Apparently, present findings revealed that the impacts of heavy metals toxicity were more evident in the passerines from urban surroundings due to the accumulation of heavy metals toxicity in air and also adjoining aquatic sub-habitats to cause unsolicited behavior and the physiological profiles of the four occurring passerine species to jeopardize their sustainability.