A small fish model and surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry were used to investigate plasma protein expression as a means to screen chemicals for estrogenic activity. Adult male sheepshead minnows (Cyprinodon variegatus) were placed into aquaria for seawater control, solvent control, and treatments of 17beta-estradiol (E2), methoxychlor (MXC), bisphenol-A (BPA), 4-tert-pentylphenol (TPP), endosulfan (ES), and chlorpyriphos (CP). Fish plasma was applied to weak cation exchange (CM10) ProteinChip arrays, processed, and analyzed. The array produced approximately 42 peaks for E2 plasma and 30 peaks for solvent control plasma. Estrogen-responsive mass spectral biomarker peaks were identified by comparison of E2-treated and control plasma spectra. Thirteen potential protein biomarkers with a range from 1 to 13 kDa were up- or downregulated in E2-treated fish and their performance as estrogenic effects markers was evaluated by comparing spectra from control, estrogen agonist, and nonagonist stressor-treated males and normal female fish plasma. One of the biomarkers, mass-to-charge ratio 3025.5, was identified by high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry as C. variegatus zona radiata protein, fragment 2. The weak environmental estrogens MXC, BPA, and TPP elicited protein expression profiles consistent with the estrogen expression model. Estrogen-responsive peaks were not detected in plasma from fish in the seawater, vehicle, ES, or CP treatments. No difference was found between plasma protein expression of seawater control and solvent control fish. We show that water exposure of fish to estrogen agonists produces distinct plasma protein biomarkers that can be reproducibly detected at low levels using protein chips and mass spectrometry.

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Coral reefs provide shoreline protection, biological diversity, fishery harvests, and tourism, all values that stem from the physically-complex coral infrastructure. Stony corals (scleractinians) construct and maintain the reef through deposition of calcium carbonate. Therefore, assessment of coral reefs requires at least some measurement endpoints that reflect the biological and physical condition of stony corals. Most monitoring programs portray coral quantity as live coral cover, which is the two-dimensional proportion of coral surface to sea floor viewed from above (planar view). The absence of the third dimension, however, limits our ability to characterize coral reef value, physiology, health and sustainability. A three-dimensional (3D) approach more realistically characterizes coral structure available as community habitat and, when combined with estimates of live coral tissue, quantifies the amount of living coral available for photosynthesis, growth and reproduction. A rapid coral survey procedure that coupled 3D coral quantification with more traditional survey measurements was developed and tested in the field. The survey procedure relied on only three underwater observations--species identification, colony size, and proportion of live tissue--made on each colony in the transect. These observations generated a variety of metrics, including several based on 3D colony surface area, that are relevant to reef management.

In a previous paper (Harris, 1972) the meiofauna of an exposed sand beach at Whitsand Bay, Cornwall, was described in relation to the physical environment. During this study special emphasis was placed on the harpacticoid copepods, of which 13 species were recorded on the beach. In the present paper the horizontal and vertical zonation of the copepod species on the beach is described. An account of seasonal changes in the copepod population will be given in a subsequent paper.