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

尽管公众和科学界对环境中存在的干扰内分泌系统的人为化学物质（内分泌干扰物）非常关注，但人们对长期暴露于低水平的内分泌干扰物对动物行为的影响知之甚少。拟开展的项目将：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棘鱼（Gasterosteus aculeatus）的行为发育、生活史特征和内分泌干扰的生物标志物；2)确定长期暴露于低水平乙炔雌二醇如何影响两种成年行为、形态和生活史不同的刺鱼全同胞家族的发育轨迹。本实验将探讨终生暴露于低水平外源性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志物与生态学相关特征（如生活史和行为）联系起来，为越来越多的内分泌干扰文献做出贡献。此外，该研究明确检查了种内变异（在全同胞家庭和人群中）对内分泌干扰的易感性。这些数据将阐明有关棘鱼种群水平变化来源的重要问题。

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.