TP3 Metals in the Environment: Dietary Concerns in Aquatic Systems
254 Portland Ballroom
1:20 PM - 4:40 PM, Tuesday
() The effect of metal-contaminated diets collected from the wild on reproduction in fish.
Bury, N1, Brix, K2, Hogstrand, C1, Luoma, S3, Smith, B4, Rainbow, P4, 1 King's College London, London, United Kingdom2 EcoTox, Coral Gables, Fl, USA3 US Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Ca, USA4 Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT- The South-West of England has a rich history of mining activity. Due to a low population density and very little arable farming concentrations of major organic pollutants in the rivers in this region are below detection limits, and despite cessation of mining activity metals are still the major pollutants of concern in these watersheds. Nereis diversicolor, a sediment burrowing polychaete worm, was collected from 3 esturaries (Restronguet Creek (RC), Gannel (GN) and Tavey (TV)) in the South-West of England, as well as from a non-metal contaminated estuary Blackwater (BL). Five groups of adult zebrafish were placed into static water, which constantly passed through carbon filters and 50% was replenished daily. The fish were fed for 8 weeks and received 3 feeds a day; worms or for the control group flake food, flake food and brine shrimp, each feed at 2% of their body weight. After the feeding trial reproduction success was assessed in each group. The major finding was that fish fed the metal contaminated diet showed a significant reduction in hatching success of their embryos compared to fish fed worms collected from a metal free site or control flake diet (hatching success - RC, 10%; GN 43%, TV, 35%, BL 75% and control diet 79%). In addition, there was a large variation in the number of eggs produced during spawning and the number of spawns that occurred during the reproductive assessment period between the groups of fish fed the metal-contaminated diet. The profile of metal concentration in the worms differs between the sites suggesting that differing metals may perturb the reproductive cycle at different axes. Because the measured water metal concentrations and fish growth rate did not differ between the groups the results suggest that a metal contaminated diet can affect the reproductive performance of teleost fish.
Key words: Diet, Metals, Reproduction, Zebrafish