DOI: 10.5061/dryad.hx3ffbgqs
title: Data from: Effects of short-term multi-pollutant exposure on the oxidative stress status of captive songbirds

description: The human influence on Earth's ecosystems is omnipresent. Artificial
 light at night (ALAN), anthropogenic noise and air pollution, are inherent
 features of human activities and infrastructure and pose novel
 environmental challenges to urban-dwelling wildlife. So far, most of the
 studies investigating the impacts of exposure to urban pollutants on
 animals have either investigated the effects of urban environments per se,
 or of single pollutants. However, urban pollutants co-occur, and
 interactive effects may arise when acting in combination, but we lack a
 deeper understanding of the effects of combined exposures. Here, we
 experimentally exposed captive zebra finches Taeniopygia guttata in a
 full-factorial design to increased levels of ALAN, anthropogenic noise
 and/or soot and measured oxidative stress status in blood before and after
 a five-day exposure. We found that the combined exposure to ALAN and noise
 led to a positive synergistic effect (higher levels than the sum of
 individual effects) on the antioxidant glutathione (tGSH) and negative
 synergistic effect (lower levels than the sum of individual effects) on
 the levels of oxidative damage, measured as concentration of reactive
 oxygen metabolites (ROM). Soot had no effect on the avian oxidative stress
 status in the blood immediately after the exposure, neither singly nor in
 combination with other pollutants. To conclude, our results indicate that
 a combination of stressors can have complex non-additive interactive
 effects on oxidative stress status after a short-term exposure.
 Surprisingly, a combined exposure to ALAN and anthropogenic noise leads to
 a stronger antioxidant response that seem to prevent oxidative damage than
 exposure to only one of the stressors. Whether the increased antioxidant
 defense entails any long-term costs remains to be determined in future
 studies.
description: # Data from: Effects of short-term multi-pollutant exposure on the
 oxidative stress status of captive songbirds
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hx3ffbgqs](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hx3ffbgqs) ## Description of the data and file structure **Ziegler_et_al_20250305_submission_all_data.csv** NA across the whole dataset stands for missing values Ring No: ID of the bird Sex: male or female Treatment: soot, noise, light, control, soot/light, soot/noise, noise/light and soot/noise/light Treatment-groups: 1-8 Soot: yes or no Light: yes or no Noise: yes or no Experimental cage: 1-8 Weight_1: body mass prior to experiment (g) Weight_2: body mass in the middle of the experiment (g) Weight_3: body mass after the experiment (g) Tarsus_1: tarsus lenght prior to experiment (mm) Tarsus_2: tarsus lenght in the middle of the experiment (mm) Tarsus_3 tarsus lenght after the experiment (mm) Pre_tGSH_um: concentration of total glutathione(tGSH) before the experiment (micromol/L) Post_tGSH: concentation of total glutathione(tGSH) after the experiment (micromol/L) Round: batch of run of tGSH, old or new Cent_pre_OXY: standarized antioxidant values(OXY) before the experiment Post_OXY: concentration of OXY after the experiment (mM HCIO neutralised) Cent_mass_OXY: standardized OXY values after the experiment Cent_pre_ROMs: stnadardized values for oxidative damage before the experiment Post_ROMs: concentration of ROMs after experiment (mmol H2O2/L) Cent_mass_ROMs: standardized values of ROMs after the experiment