DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Effects of an Endocrine Disrupter on the Development of Behavior in Threespined Stickleback (Gasterosteus Aculeatus)

朱迪·A·斯塔姆斯艾莉森·M·贝尔尽管公众和科学对环境中存在干扰内分泌系统(内分泌干扰物)的人为化学物质的存在表示了相当大的担忧，但人们对长期接触低水平内分泌干扰物对动物行为的影响知之甚少。拟议的项目将：1)确定终生暴露于环境相关水平的乙炔雌二醇如何影响三刺刺鱼的行为发育、生活史特征和内分泌干扰的生物标记物；2)确定长期暴露于低水平的乙基雌二醇如何影响来自两个种群的全同胞刺鱼的发育轨迹，两个种群的成鱼在行为、形态和生活史上存在差异。这项拟议的实验将考察终生暴露于低水平外源雌激素对行为特征发展的影响。它将通过将广泛使用的毒理学生物标记物与生态相关特征(如生活史和行为)联系起来，为日益增长的关于内分泌干扰的文献做出贡献。此外，这项研究明确检查了种内变异(在全同胞家庭和群体中)对内分泌干扰的易感性。这些数据将阐明有关刺鱼种群水平差异来源的重要问题。

Judy A. StampsAlison M. BellDespite considerable public and scientific concern about the presence of anthropogenic chemicals in the environment that can interfere with the endocrine system (endocrine disrupters), little is known about the effects of chronic exposure to low levels of endocrine disrupters on animal behavior. The proposed project will:1) Determine how lifetime exposure to environmentally-relevant levels of ethinyl estradiol affects behavioral development, life history traits and biomarkers of endocrine disruption in threespined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus);2) Determine how chronic exposure to low levels of ethinyl estradiol affects the developmental trajectories of full sib families of stickleback from two populations where adults differ in behavior, morphology and life history. The proposed experiment will examine the influence of lifetime exposure to low levels of an exogenous estrogen on the development of behavioral traits. It will contribute to the growing literature on endocrine disruption by relating widely-used toxicological biomarkers with ecologically relevant traits, such as life history and behavior. In addition, the study explicitly examines intraspecific variation (among full-sib families and populations) in susceptibility to endocrine disruption. These data will shed light on important questions regarding the source of population-level variation in stickleback.