Syphoniera
Fish Herder
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2008
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Rather than clutter up somebody's post with this, I'll slap this hastily assembled assortment on a separate post.
We're all having more and more trouble trying to tell the boys from the girls, as so many fish now seem to have sex characteristics - and even sex organs - from both sides.
Feminized male fish are rapidly becoming common - and not only in British and North American waters...
This is an issue that has to be considered as well in the context of increasing numbers of pet fish demonstrating similar problems - likely from tap water contaminants as well as from food, etc. sources.
And, believe it or not, this is already having a major impact on life itself.
(Of course, I'm still terming the female ( ? ) Betta I bought as a male ( ? ) a girl...)
http
/www.grist.org/news/2008/02/22/hornyhead/
The Male of the Species Is More Female Than the Female
California sewage makes for femme fish, says study
Posted at 3:18 PM on 22 Feb 2008
Chemicals in southern California wastewater are sneaking past sewage-treatment plants and into the ocean, where they can seriously wack out fishy hormone levels, according to preliminary research. Flame retardants, PCBs, residue from long-banned pesticide DDT, and other chemicals from pills and beauty products have all showed up in the water, via human pee. An ongoing study of a flatfish called the hornyhead turbot (hee hee) finds that some males of the species have abnormally high levels of estrogen, while one hearty male had actually produced eggs. Activists urge that treatment plants be upgraded to catch more chemicals.
http/www.stcloudstate.edu/cose/college/d...erlawmakers.pdf
Feminized fish
sober lawmakers
... Yet, certain chemicals from these pharmaceuticals and from
household cleaning and personal care products are among the
“emerging contaminants” disrupting the endocrine systems of
fish in the Mississippi River.
In his testimony to the committee at the State Office Building
in St. Paul, Schoenfuss, associate professor in the Department
of Biological Sciences and director of St. Cloud State
University’s Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory, said the emerging
contaminants — even in concentrations so minute they are
measured in parts per trillion — can and do disrupt the endocrine
systems of fish.
A study of water and fish samples from more than 40 sites
in the Mississippi in 2006 revealed “hot spots” — areas with
emerging contaminant concentrations high enough to affect
fish. And fish samples from these spots showed feminization:
male fish are producing egg yolk.
Higher concentrations of emerging contaminants in the
Potomac River near Washington, D.C., Boulder Creek in
Colorado and the California coast; are producing some intersex
fish, according to studies conducted by the National
Geological Survey in 2003. Intersex means the fish have both
ovarian and testicular tissue. ...'
... “Emerging contaminants interact with hormone receptors on
the cells in our bodies,” Schoenfuss said, adding that because
the receptors cannot distinguish between the contaminants
and natural hormones, they readily bind to the contaminants.
The contaminants then “tell the receptor sites to do something
they would otherwise not do.”
When the receptors are estrogen receptors, which the cells of
both males and females have, the results can vary from sluggish
or non-existent reproductive activity, to feminization of
male fish, to intersex fish.
Schoenfuss said some fish may show no effects, but their offspring
or succeeding generations of offspring may show the
effects. ...
Below: another term is used for industrially produced endocrine-disrupting chemicals, 'ecoestrogens', bearing a different connotation and sounding more 'natural'. ???
The Skinner studies, etc. have already demonstrated not only the effects of such endocrine disrupting artificial chemicals, but their epigenetic transfer to further generations.
http/www.mote.org/index.php?src=director...zine&id=599
Mote Marine Laboratory
At Lake Apopka in Central Florida, the alligators have tiny penises. They run a third the size of normal alligator phalli and have significantly diminished sperm counts. In England, on the Lee River, feminized male fish have eggs as well as sperm in their gonads. And in the Great Lakes region, birds - including male herring gulls, terns and bald eagles - start exhibiting hermaphroditic changes after eating feminized fish.
Some scientists think the culprit in all of these gender-bending events might be exposure to ecoestrogens - a broad class of chemicals that mimic the hormone estrogen and disrupt normal functioning of the endocrine system, a body-wide network of hormone-producing glands that control things like growth and reproduction.
Wastewater treatment plants constantly release ecoestrogen-containing effluent into the wild. "There's little doubt that wastewater-related pollutants represent significant risks to human and wildlife populations," said Dr. James Gelsleichter, who manages Mote's elasmobranch physiology and environmental biology program in the Center for Shark Research. "They do clear out the effluents pretty efficiently - usually about 80 to 90 percent of contaminants are removed - but the problem is the level of human usage and development."
Gelsleichter wants to know exactly what endocrine disruption looks like at the molecular level. To do this he's in the process of developing an innovative microarray in conjunction with EcoArray, a Florida-based biotech company.
The microarray, called the SharkChip, will use cutting-edge genomics technology to produce a "genetic fingerprint" that will enable Gelsleichter to determine if ecoestrogens are affecting bonnethead sharks.
A microarray, sometimes called a gene chip or a biochip, is a small, nylon or glass wafer-like chip capable of holding thousands of genes. Such arrays represent a quantum leap forward for scientists who study pollution impacts because they allow the comprehensive study of how pollution affects gene expression - when genes are turned on or off.
Before microarrays, toxicologists could only study how individual, isolated genes responded to pollution. Now they can look at thousands of genes at once. The SharkChip's creation is part of a long-term study of 10 species that Gelsleichter hopes will reveal how much danger ecoestrogens pose to wildlife and people. "We know ecoestrogens are all over in the environment," Gelsleichter said. "We just don't know exactly how they impact wildlife."
Irksome Ecoestrogens
Ecoestrogens are common byproducts of the industrial world and exist in a slew of everyday products such as plastics, pesticides and birth control pills. Since they are so pervasive, ecoestrogens quickly find their way into the nation's waterways and can wreak havoc on the reproductive systems of organisms exposed to them in high doses, particularly fish and other marine animals. In the wild, ecoestrogens cause feminization of males and tend to become concentrated in large predators such as sharks. "They're a potentially huge problem," Gelsleichter said. ...
... One technique Gelsleichter is using to monitor ecoestrogen exposure is to test for the presence of vitellogenin in sharks and other marine animals. Vitellogenin is an egg yolk precursor protein expressed only in female fish that is normally dormant in male fish. However, when male fish are exposed to ecoestrogens, the vitellogenin gene turns on, causing organisms to produce the substance.
Vitellogenin indicates exposure to ecoestrogens in a broad sense, but it doesn't tell scientists the precise chemical causing the vitellogenin reaction. That's where the SharkChip comes in. It will allow Gelsleichter to associate specific changes in gene expression with exposure to specific types of ecoestrogens.
Gelsleichter, for example, plans to look at the molecular fingerprints of 17a-ethnylestradiol, synthetic estrogen from birth control pills, Bisphenol A, a common component of certain plastics, and Alkylphenol Ethoxylates, a class of chemicals found in home and industrial cleaning products. Scientists suspect that all of these chemicals may disrupt the reproductive activities of fish and other marine animals at environmentally relevant levels.
"We feel these tests are the wave of the future," said Dr. Patrick Larkin, the director of research at EcoArray, the company partnering with Gelsleichter to make the chip. "They really allow us to get a snapshot of what's going on in a cell."
In some situations, as in the case of the alligators of Lake Apopka, the impact is drastic and quite apparent. Scientists call these large-scale changes "organismal markers." But often the impact of ecoestrogens is much less obvious, revealing itself only years later in the form of high rates of animal cancers and other reproductive disorders. Scientists call these more subtle changes in gene expression "biomarkers."
"The problem with organismal markers is that they are relatively insensitive to pollutants. Biomarkers can tell you exactly what's going on in an organism when it is exposed to even low levels of contaminants," Gelsleichter said. ...
... One problem is organizing and sorting through the mountains of data that microarrays produce. Another is separating chemically-induced effects from naturally occurring changes in gene expression. Small environmental changes such as the weather, can influence gene expression, as can other difficult-to-discern factors such as diet, or even mood.
None of this daunts Gelsleichter, however. "Ultimately, the more genes you look at, the more accurate your diagnosis is going to be," he said. ...
And in the meantime, betta breeders are going to have a heck of a time trying to sort things out...
We're all having more and more trouble trying to tell the boys from the girls, as so many fish now seem to have sex characteristics - and even sex organs - from both sides.
Feminized male fish are rapidly becoming common - and not only in British and North American waters...
This is an issue that has to be considered as well in the context of increasing numbers of pet fish demonstrating similar problems - likely from tap water contaminants as well as from food, etc. sources.
And, believe it or not, this is already having a major impact on life itself.
(Of course, I'm still terming the female ( ? ) Betta I bought as a male ( ? ) a girl...)
http
/www.grist.org/news/2008/02/22/hornyhead/The Male of the Species Is More Female Than the Female
California sewage makes for femme fish, says study
Posted at 3:18 PM on 22 Feb 2008
Chemicals in southern California wastewater are sneaking past sewage-treatment plants and into the ocean, where they can seriously wack out fishy hormone levels, according to preliminary research. Flame retardants, PCBs, residue from long-banned pesticide DDT, and other chemicals from pills and beauty products have all showed up in the water, via human pee. An ongoing study of a flatfish called the hornyhead turbot (hee hee) finds that some males of the species have abnormally high levels of estrogen, while one hearty male had actually produced eggs. Activists urge that treatment plants be upgraded to catch more chemicals.
http
/www.stcloudstate.edu/cose/college/d...erlawmakers.pdfFeminized fish
sober lawmakers
... Yet, certain chemicals from these pharmaceuticals and from
household cleaning and personal care products are among the
“emerging contaminants” disrupting the endocrine systems of
fish in the Mississippi River.
In his testimony to the committee at the State Office Building
in St. Paul, Schoenfuss, associate professor in the Department
of Biological Sciences and director of St. Cloud State
University’s Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory, said the emerging
contaminants — even in concentrations so minute they are
measured in parts per trillion — can and do disrupt the endocrine
systems of fish.
A study of water and fish samples from more than 40 sites
in the Mississippi in 2006 revealed “hot spots” — areas with
emerging contaminant concentrations high enough to affect
fish. And fish samples from these spots showed feminization:
male fish are producing egg yolk.
Higher concentrations of emerging contaminants in the
Potomac River near Washington, D.C., Boulder Creek in
Colorado and the California coast; are producing some intersex
fish, according to studies conducted by the National
Geological Survey in 2003. Intersex means the fish have both
ovarian and testicular tissue. ...'
... “Emerging contaminants interact with hormone receptors on
the cells in our bodies,” Schoenfuss said, adding that because
the receptors cannot distinguish between the contaminants
and natural hormones, they readily bind to the contaminants.
The contaminants then “tell the receptor sites to do something
they would otherwise not do.”
When the receptors are estrogen receptors, which the cells of
both males and females have, the results can vary from sluggish
or non-existent reproductive activity, to feminization of
male fish, to intersex fish.
Schoenfuss said some fish may show no effects, but their offspring
or succeeding generations of offspring may show the
effects. ...
Below: another term is used for industrially produced endocrine-disrupting chemicals, 'ecoestrogens', bearing a different connotation and sounding more 'natural'. ???
The Skinner studies, etc. have already demonstrated not only the effects of such endocrine disrupting artificial chemicals, but their epigenetic transfer to further generations.
http
/www.mote.org/index.php?src=director...zine&id=599Mote Marine Laboratory
At Lake Apopka in Central Florida, the alligators have tiny penises. They run a third the size of normal alligator phalli and have significantly diminished sperm counts. In England, on the Lee River, feminized male fish have eggs as well as sperm in their gonads. And in the Great Lakes region, birds - including male herring gulls, terns and bald eagles - start exhibiting hermaphroditic changes after eating feminized fish.
Some scientists think the culprit in all of these gender-bending events might be exposure to ecoestrogens - a broad class of chemicals that mimic the hormone estrogen and disrupt normal functioning of the endocrine system, a body-wide network of hormone-producing glands that control things like growth and reproduction.
Wastewater treatment plants constantly release ecoestrogen-containing effluent into the wild. "There's little doubt that wastewater-related pollutants represent significant risks to human and wildlife populations," said Dr. James Gelsleichter, who manages Mote's elasmobranch physiology and environmental biology program in the Center for Shark Research. "They do clear out the effluents pretty efficiently - usually about 80 to 90 percent of contaminants are removed - but the problem is the level of human usage and development."
Gelsleichter wants to know exactly what endocrine disruption looks like at the molecular level. To do this he's in the process of developing an innovative microarray in conjunction with EcoArray, a Florida-based biotech company.
The microarray, called the SharkChip, will use cutting-edge genomics technology to produce a "genetic fingerprint" that will enable Gelsleichter to determine if ecoestrogens are affecting bonnethead sharks.
A microarray, sometimes called a gene chip or a biochip, is a small, nylon or glass wafer-like chip capable of holding thousands of genes. Such arrays represent a quantum leap forward for scientists who study pollution impacts because they allow the comprehensive study of how pollution affects gene expression - when genes are turned on or off.
Before microarrays, toxicologists could only study how individual, isolated genes responded to pollution. Now they can look at thousands of genes at once. The SharkChip's creation is part of a long-term study of 10 species that Gelsleichter hopes will reveal how much danger ecoestrogens pose to wildlife and people. "We know ecoestrogens are all over in the environment," Gelsleichter said. "We just don't know exactly how they impact wildlife."
Irksome Ecoestrogens
Ecoestrogens are common byproducts of the industrial world and exist in a slew of everyday products such as plastics, pesticides and birth control pills. Since they are so pervasive, ecoestrogens quickly find their way into the nation's waterways and can wreak havoc on the reproductive systems of organisms exposed to them in high doses, particularly fish and other marine animals. In the wild, ecoestrogens cause feminization of males and tend to become concentrated in large predators such as sharks. "They're a potentially huge problem," Gelsleichter said. ...
... One technique Gelsleichter is using to monitor ecoestrogen exposure is to test for the presence of vitellogenin in sharks and other marine animals. Vitellogenin is an egg yolk precursor protein expressed only in female fish that is normally dormant in male fish. However, when male fish are exposed to ecoestrogens, the vitellogenin gene turns on, causing organisms to produce the substance.
Vitellogenin indicates exposure to ecoestrogens in a broad sense, but it doesn't tell scientists the precise chemical causing the vitellogenin reaction. That's where the SharkChip comes in. It will allow Gelsleichter to associate specific changes in gene expression with exposure to specific types of ecoestrogens.
Gelsleichter, for example, plans to look at the molecular fingerprints of 17a-ethnylestradiol, synthetic estrogen from birth control pills, Bisphenol A, a common component of certain plastics, and Alkylphenol Ethoxylates, a class of chemicals found in home and industrial cleaning products. Scientists suspect that all of these chemicals may disrupt the reproductive activities of fish and other marine animals at environmentally relevant levels.
"We feel these tests are the wave of the future," said Dr. Patrick Larkin, the director of research at EcoArray, the company partnering with Gelsleichter to make the chip. "They really allow us to get a snapshot of what's going on in a cell."
In some situations, as in the case of the alligators of Lake Apopka, the impact is drastic and quite apparent. Scientists call these large-scale changes "organismal markers." But often the impact of ecoestrogens is much less obvious, revealing itself only years later in the form of high rates of animal cancers and other reproductive disorders. Scientists call these more subtle changes in gene expression "biomarkers."
"The problem with organismal markers is that they are relatively insensitive to pollutants. Biomarkers can tell you exactly what's going on in an organism when it is exposed to even low levels of contaminants," Gelsleichter said. ...
... One problem is organizing and sorting through the mountains of data that microarrays produce. Another is separating chemically-induced effects from naturally occurring changes in gene expression. Small environmental changes such as the weather, can influence gene expression, as can other difficult-to-discern factors such as diet, or even mood.
None of this daunts Gelsleichter, however. "Ultimately, the more genes you look at, the more accurate your diagnosis is going to be," he said. ...
And in the meantime, betta breeders are going to have a heck of a time trying to sort things out...
