Mutagenicity studies on herring gulls from different locations on the Great Lakes. I. Sister chromatid exchange rates in herring-gull embryos.

Unincubated herring-gull (Larus argentatus) eggs were collected from five colonies on the Great Lakes Basin and from one relatively pollutant-clean colony on the Atlantic coast. Eggs were incubated at 38 degrees C with 55% relative humidity, and sister chromatid exchange (SCE) levels were measured in 7-d embryos. For all of the colonies, the average SCE/chromosome frequency ranged from 0.069 to 0.101; however, no significant differences were found. Organochlorine analysis was carried out on egg homogenates for each colony, to determine the levels of several contaminants. There were no relationships found between any of the contaminant levels and the SCE frequencies. The study indicates that either the contaminants present in the herring-gull eggs are not having any genetic effects on the embryos or, alternatively, that there may be genetic damage that measurement of SCEs in the 7-d embryo is unable to detect.