Effects of Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluent in a Receiving Stream on Reproductive Behavior of Fathead Minnows (Pimephales promelas)

Wastewater treatment plant effluents contain a variety of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), including with estrogenic activity such as 17β-estradiol (E2), 17α-ethinyl estradiol (EE2), and nonylphenols. These substances can affect both behavior physiology in vertebrate animals. To explore the presence effects these EDCs natural setting, juvenile adult male fathead minnows, Pimephales promelas, were held cages upstream downstream effluent site wastewater for 21 days subsequently tested changes reproductive behaviors production vitellogenin. Additionally, stream was measured using yeast bioassay. Estrogenicity found to be significantly higher when compared levels upstream. Vitellogenin did not show correlational pattern estrogenicity water, but two measures occurred less often males than males. This suggests that brief (three-week) exposure water containing bring about fish may more sensitive low environmental disruptors vitellogenin production.