A bibliometric analysis: what do we know about metals(loids) accumulation in wild birds?

Metals and metalloids pollution is an important worldwide problem due to the social and ecological effects and therefore has been the subject of many disciplines and the adverse impacts have been documented. In this study, content analysis and trends of studies focused on heavy metal accumulation in birds were presented. For this purpose, a bibliometric network analysis of the studies that use the concepts of "pollution," "heavy metal," and "birds" together in the abstract, keywords, and titles of the papers was carried out. The purpose of choosing this research method was summarizing the relation between birds and environmental pollution in an understandable manner to determine metals(loids) pollution, which become an important environmental problem. Bibliometric data consisting of approximately 971 papers were evaluated with VOSviewer program using the network analysis method to answer the research questions. The results revealed that birds act as bioindicators in the determination of environmental pollution and that the contaminant metals deposited in the various tissues of birds provide preliminary information about environmental pollution. The most of bird studies emphasized that the metal accumulation was mostly in the liver, kidneys, and feathers and the accumulation caused serious problems in most of the vital activities of the birds. The USA is in the leading country in birds-heavy metal studies followed by Spain, Canada, and China. In addition, the mercury (Hg) was the most extensively studied heavy metal in these studies.