Dissertation Writers: Any speculation as to why more sexual abnormalities seen at lower exposure levels
1) Any speculation as to why more sexual abnormalities seen at lower exposure levels?? One could assume the opposite to be true but based on the assigned paper’s results, this does not appear to be the case.
2) Acute versus chronic exposure; does continual atrazine exposure increase the likelihood of developing and adaptive resistance? And could that adaptation be passed on to offspring??
3) If most water sources (including rain) in the US contain more than the effective does of atrazine, then why aren’t ALL frogs female?? This data suggests that exposure levels are high over the entire country so why are sexual alterations limited to just agricultural areas?
One theory about the chemistry behind why sexual differentiation happens revolves around the fact that atrazine induces aromatase, an enzyme responsible for converting androgens into oestrogens. Based on this logic, scientists assume that increased levels of estrogen in male frogs are responsible for the observed sex changes to female. This reasoning relieves atrazine’s direct accountability from affecting sexual alterations yet confirms its responsibility for causing these changes indirectly.
Since the assigned paper proved to be a very brief summary of a legitimate environmental health concern, I sought out more information to further the discussion. This led me to a 2016 study published by the EPA (https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2013-0266-0315 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.) that focused on in-depth research efforts to provide an assessment of ALL ecological risks from atrazine. Of relevance to the topic at hand are the following pages; 23 is a brief background on the usage of atrazine, 30 details health risks to aquatic phase amphibians following exposure, 34 is a US geographical map of atrazine distribution, 39 describes the timing of applications, 63 is a summary of physical and chemical properties, and lastly pages 174-178 provide an in-depth analysis of the toxicological effects that atrazine poses to amphibians. Since this is a discussion forum, I invite everyone to check out the mentioned pages if you need some topic starting points. In addition, I’ve posted a few of my own thoughts, listed below.
