Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Bull Environ Contam Toxicol DOI 10.1007/s00128-017-2035-4 Accumulation of Metals in Liver Tissues of Sympatric Golden Jackal (Canis aureus) and Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) in the Southern Part of Romania Attila Farkas 1  · András Bidló 2  · Bernadett Bolodár‑Varga 2  · Ferenc Jánoska 3   Received: 4 July 2016 / Accepted: 24 January 2017 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017 Keywords Golden jackal · Red fox · Trace elements · Heavy metals · Romania The accumulation of heavy metals and other trace elements in living, wild, medium-sized predators such as the golden jackal (Ćirović et al. 2015; Markov et al. 2016) and the red fox (Corsolini et al. 1999; Dip et al. 2001; Bilandžić et al. 2010; Jankovská et al. 2010; Heltai and Markov 2012; Binkowski et al. 2016) has been studied previously in dif- ferent European habitats. Those studies demonstrated that these species may serve as biological indicators of environ- mental contamination mainly because they fulfll certain basic demands such as their abundance, resistance to pol- lution, and breadth of occurrence (Wren 1986; Kalisińska et al. 2009). The red fox is the most common predator in Europe (IUCN 2008) while golden jackal populations in Europe display ongoing expansion, particularly in the Bal- kans and up toward central Europe (Jhala and Moehlman 2008; Arnold et al. 2012). In addition to wide distribu- tion ranges, both carnivore species can be legally hunted as wild game (Heltai and Markov 2012; Stoyanov 2012). These facts make these species very useful in ecotoxico- logical and biomonitoring studies. However, in many Euro- pean habitats such as our study area, the red fox and the golden jackal hold the highest positions in food chain as apex predators (Dell’Arte et al. 2007; Heltai and Szem- ethy 2010; Farkas et al. 2015a). Due to their apex predator status, opportunistic feeding habits, (Dell’Arte et al. 2007; Hoelgaard 2008; IUCN 2008; Bošković et al. 2013; Ćirović et al. 2014; Lanszki et al. 2015) and utilization of available human-related food categories (Gortázar 1997; Yom-Tov et al. 2003; Raichev et al. 2013; Ćirović et al. 2016), their exposure to a variety of substances may be substantial. Simultaneous studies about heavy metals and other trace Abstract Several previous study results have already demonstrated that golden jackal and red fox may serve as biological indicators of trace elements and heavy metal concentrations in the various regions they inhabit. The aim of this study was to evaluate accumulation patterns of tar- geted elements (Al, Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ni and Pb) in liver samples of red foxes and golden jackals collected during the same period in the southern part of Romania. The accumulation patterns of trace elements in the livers of sympatric golden jackal and red fox were practically the same. To date, separate studies of the species individually in diferent habitats have shown that either of the species can be used for ecotoxicological and biomonitoring stud- ies. Moreover, in general gender related studies, no signif- cant diferences in the concentrations of the investigated elements were found in either jackals or foxes. Also, aver- age metal concentrations in liver samples do not show sig- nifcant diferences between groups under and above 12 months of age. * Attila Farkas farkas_attila@mailbox.hu András Bidló bidlo.andras@nyme.hu Ferenc Jánoska janoska.ferenc@nyme.hu 1 Roth Gyula Doctoral School of Forestry and Wildlife Management Sciences, University of West Hungary, Bajcsy-Zs. str. 4, Sopron 9400, Hungary 2 Faculty of Forestry, Institute of Environmental and Earth Sciences, University of West Hungary, Bajcsy-Zs. str. 4, Sopron 9400, Hungary 3 Faculty of Forestry, Institute of Wildlife Management and Vertebrate Zoology, University of West Hungary, Bajcsy-Zs. str. 4, Sopron 9400, Hungary