Testing the effects of herbicides on fish reproduction.

One of the main areas of environmental interest for many years has been the impact of agricultural run-off on aquatic ecosystems.

In PEI, where agriculture and the fishing industry represent such a large part of the Island’s economy, it is of vital concern.

The herbicide Linuron is widely used in Canada chosen by Melanie Gallant, a Grade 12 student at the École François-Buote school in Charlottetown chosen for a study entitled ‘Gender-bender pesticides’, which won top prize in the PEI Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge.

Starting with a general idea that she wanted to study toxic chemicals on organisms, Melanie connected with Dr. Michael R. van den Heuvel, and Dr Natasha Hogan of the Department of Biology, University of PEI. Collectively they came up with the focus on how Linuron might inhibit or interfere with the normal action of androgens (the male hormones) in stickle-back fish.

In just seventy-two hours of exposure to Linuron, Melanie was seeing an effect on the level of androgen in fish in tanks.

Whether Linuron affects fish populations in the wild is the direction of Melanie’s further research. And the next step is to test a range of concentrations to determine the threshold at which Linuron affects male hormones.

Melanie will also play a big role in preparing a short research paper in one of the academic journals on toxicology and is going on to undergraduate studies at Mount Alison University.