Atrazine-induced hermaphroditism at 0.1 ppb in American leopard frogs (Rana pipiens): laboratory and field evidence.

By T. Hayes, K. Haston, Mable Tsui, Anhthu Hoang, C. Haeffele, A. Vonk. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2002

654 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Atrazine is the most commonly used herbicide in the United States and probably the world. Atrazine contamination is widespread and can be present in excess of 1.0 ppb even in precipitation and in areas where it is not used. In the current study, we showed that atrazine exposure (> or = to 0.1 ppb) resulted in retarded gonadal development (gonadal dysgenesis) and testicular oogenesis (hermaphroditism) in leopard frogs (Rana pipiens). Slower developing males even experienced oocyte growth (vitellogenesis). Furthermore, we observed gonadal dysgenesis and hermaphroditism in animals collected from atrazine-contaminated sites across the United States. These coordinated laboratory and field studies revealed the potential biological impact of atrazine contamination in the environment. Combined with reported similar effects in Xenopus laevis, the current data raise concern about the effects of atrazine on amphibians in general and the potential role of atrazine and other endocrine-disrupting pesticides in amphibian declines.

Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Pollution, Small Animals

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/02b3e97219ca20000aec2779811a93f83042f2df

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

1. T. Hayes
2. Jason Rohr

In Pollution

1. T. Hayes
2. O. Thomas

In Small Animals

1. T. Hayes
2. Philip Stephens

Citations in the corpus

• Effect of Endocrine Disruptor Pesticides: A Review (2011, background): “Adrenal glands damages and reduction of steroid hormone metabolism [13,80-83] U: <LOD–9.”
• Will climate change reduce the effects of a pesticide on amphibians?: partitioning effects on exposure and susceptibility to contaminants (2011, background): “…exposure to atrazine can be delayed and might even be permanent, such as effects on the endocrine system, gonadal development, behavior, and survival (Stoker et al., 1999; Cooper et al., 2000; Hayes et al., 2002; Hayes et al., 2003; Rayner et al., 2005; Rohr & Palmer, 2005; Rohr et al., 2006b).”
• There Is No Denying This: Defusing the Confusion about Atrazine (2004, methodology): “In my laboratory, mortality is usually less than 10 percent, and anything greater than 15 percent would result in cancellation of the study (Hayes et al. 2002a, 2002b, 2002c).”
• Atrazine induces complete feminization and chemical castration in male African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) (2010, background): “Since our initial publications (7, 9, 10), the effects of atrazine on amphibian development and the significance of these effects to amphibian declines have been a subject of debate (30, 35, 36).”
• Information theory and hypothesis testing: a call for pluralism (2005, result): “We might then test the hypothesis that the dose‐ response curve in the field would be non-linear and similar to that found in the laboratory, with the highest effect of atrazine found at intermediate levels ( Hayes et al . 2003 ).”
• Pesticide Mixtures, Endocrine Disruption, and Amphibian Declines: Are We Underestimating the Impact? (2006, methodology): “These pesticides represented pesticides used on a cornfield in York County, NE (97°22.38 N, 40°55.88 W) (Hayes et al. 2002b) in the years 2000–2001.”