Predicting the Effects of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals on Fish Populations

Isolation and characterization of three estrogen receptor transcripts in Oreochromis mossambicus (Peters)

“…Consequently, some aspects of the endocrine system are studied in a piece-meal fashion [37][38][39][40][41]. EDCs known to have estrogenic effects are modeled and screened for by using in vivo and in vitro bioassays or a combination thereof [42][43][44] which are most often absolute or quantitative responses by estrogenresponsive genes. The latter are regulated by E 2 most often via the genomic pathway whereby the ligand binds to its specific nuclear receptor, ESR.…”

Population‐level ecological effect assessment: estimating the effect of toxic chemicals on density‐dependent populations

“…Currently, most information about chemical ecotoxicity is derived from laboratory ecotoxicological tests in which individual-level effects (e.g., the effects on individual survivability, number of offspring per individual, and body size/weight growth) of toxic chemicals are typically measured. The current framework of ecological risk assessment and decision-making for environmental protection considers only these individual-level effects of toxic chemicals and mainly ignores population-level effects (OECD -Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 1995; USEPA -US Environmental Protection Agency 2000), although it has been claimed that ecological risk-management decisions should be made with the goal of protecting populations rather than minimizing the effects on individuals (Barnthouse et al 2007;Suter 2006;USEPA 1998). To promote population-level ecological risk management, the development of methods to estimate population-level effects of chemicals from individual-level laboratory toxicity test data are needed by risk assessors and managers.…”

Extrapolating Growth Reductions in Fish to Changes in Population Extinction Risks: Copper and Chinook Salmon

“…Although it depends on the question, we think not. Much as demographic studies of a stream brook trout population can be useful far beyond the purpose of the original study, setting angling regulations in Wisconsin, USA (e.g., McFadden 1961;Brook et al 2000;Brown et al 2003), we think the demographic information compiled here on the Marsh Creek Chinook population could be useful for others. For fisheries managers who make stock assessments in order to set harvest limits for exploited species or to make other specific population forecasts, the absolute accuracy of the model projections matter a great deal.…”

“…Here we try to consider some of these issues at the population level, assuming that these inferences have relevance to other scales of ecological organization that are too complex to directly consider in this analysis, such as metapopulations or ecosystems (Ferson and Ginzburg 1996). Some previous uses of demographic population models to estimate risk from contaminants to aquatic organisms include striped bass with several chemicals (Barnthouse et al 1989), larval estuarine fish, crustaceans, and hypoxia (USEPA 2000), brook trout and fathead minnow populations with endocrine disrupting chemicals (Brown et al 2003), contaminant effects on swimming speed and predator evasion behaviors in a juvenile marine fish (Rose et al 2003;Murphy et al 2008), coastal salmon populations with an ocean-type life history of limited freshwater residency exposed to a generic contaminant causing 10% reduction in mortality and reproduction Meador 2005, 2006), cutthroat trout populations and selenium ( Van Kirk and Hill 2007), and benthic crustacean populations and cadmium (Mebane 2010).…”