Evaluation of Organochlorine Pesticides and Sex Steroids in Lower Niagara River Lake Sturgeon

Abstract

As a long-lived, late-maturing species, lake sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens are vulnerable to the bioaccumulation of contaminants, which may impact reproductive physiology. The purpose of this study was to use a nondestructive method to investigate the relationship between endocrine-disrupting contaminants and sex steroids in lake sturgeon from the lower Niagara River. We screened blood plasma samples from lower Niagara River lake sturgeon (n = 63) during April and May of 2012 for concentrations of 17 organochlorine (OC) contaminants that may affect endocrine function, as well as for abnormal levels of sex steroids testosterone (T) and 17β-estradiol (E2). We found detectable levels of two OC contaminants in the blood plasma of lake sturgeon, DDE (n = 21) and γ-BHC (n = 1). In both cases, plasma contaminant concentration was well below levels known to adversely affect sturgeon reproductive physiology. In addition, qualitative analysis of chromatographs from plasma extracts did not show the presence of other peaks that matched polychlorinated biphenyl standard peaks. Comparisons of plasma steroid levels with those of others from the literature gave no indication of endocrine disruption, though plasma T levels were notably high in the lower Niagara River population. We conclude that plasma OC levels are below threshold levels found in the scientific literature that would affect lake sturgeon reproductive physiology, and that it is unlikely that significant contaminant-mediated endocrine disruption is occurring in this population.

A practical guide for assigning sex and stage of maturity in sturgeons and paddlefish

“…Hence, it is important to describe the sex steroid profiles in a population and estimate the error rate associated with the use of assigning sex and stage of maturity on at least a small subset of a population. Special consideration for the use of this tool should be made in populations that may be exposed to environmental contaminants (Webb & Doroshov, ; Jacobs et al., ) as some contaminants may be anti‐androgenic or anti‐estrogenic.…”

Organochlorine and Metal Contaminants in the Blood Plasma of Green Sturgeon Caught in Washington Coastal Estuaries

“…Previous monitoring studies on other sturgeon species frequently detected OCs in the tissues of sacri ced animals (Foster et al 2001;Feist et al 2005;Hosseini et al 2008;Jacobs et al 2014;Gundersen et al 2017), and at least two studies have reported OCs in the plasma of sturgeon (Gundersen et al 2008;Jacobs et al 2014). These studies reported that DDE (the most stable degradation product of the pesticide DDT) was the most prevalent and concentrated OC in sturgeon.…”

Organochlorine and Metal Contaminants in the Blood Plasma of Green Sturgeon Caught in Washington Coastal Estuaries

“…Evaluating toxicity from contaminant accumulation typically requires sacri cing the animals, measuring concentrations and biomarkers of effect in several tissues. However, non-lethal methods of contaminant monitoring have now been employed for many species of wildlife, including birds (Elliott and Shutt 1993;Dhananjayan and Muralidharan 2010), snakes (Bishop and Rouse 2000), turtles (Bucchia et al 2015), and sturgeon (Gundersen et al 2008;Jacobs et al 2014). These previous studies demonstrated correlations between blood and tissue concentrations for lipophilic contaminants.…”