Data For: Chronic, Low Concentration Pesticide Exposure Alters Reproduction and Behavior in the Intertidal Sea Anemone, Anthopleura Elegantissima
Sponsor
This study was funded by the Northwest Ecological Research Institute (NERI) McGowan Research Grant for Neglected Corners and Niches of Ecology and the Edward D. and Olive C. Bushby Scholarship.
Document Type
Dataset
Publication Date
2025
Subjects
Pesticides--Environmental aspects, Sea anemones
Abstract
Widespread pesticide and herbicide use paired with frequent transport away from application sites has led to pesticide presence in nearly all terrestrial and aquatic environments globally. Pesticides have unintentional toxic effects on non-target organisms by interfering with cellular processes, behavior, feeding, reproduction, and disrupting endocrine processes. The aggregating anemone, Anthopleura elegantissima is an important species along the North American Pacific coast due its symbiotic relationships that contribute to high productivity, and its clonal abundance that structures the rocky intertidal habitat. Commonly used pesticides, atrazine, diuron, and carbendazim were previously detected in coastal waters of Oregon, U.S.A. This study examined potential effects of these pesticides at environmentally relevant concentrations on reproduction, symbiont concentrations, and behavior of A. elegantissima over an eight week period. Pesticides individually and in combination significantly decreased male gonad development in atrazine (p < 0.001), carbendazim (p < 0.001), two-way mixture (diuron and carbendazim) (p = 0.05), and a three-way mixture (p = 0.08) treatments. All pesticide treatments significantly increased cloning behavior compared to the control, suggesting that cloning could be a stress response. Pesticide exposure also significantly increased tentacle retraction movement suggesting possible metabolic or energy impairments; our study is the first to document behavioral changes in anemones. All three pesticides significantly impacted a non-target marine invertebrate at environmentally relevant concentrations which underscores the importance of studies that focus on effects to marine invertebrates, paired with comprehensive pesticide monitoring in coastal areas.
DOI
10.15760/esm-data.7
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/43722
Recommended Citation
Bleil, Bria M.; Granek, Elise F.; Kirk, Nathan L.; and Hladik, Michelle L., "Data For: Chronic, Low Concentration Pesticide Exposure Alters Reproduction and Behavior in the Intertidal Sea Anemone, Anthopleura Elegantissima" (2025). Environmental Science and Management Datasets. 7.
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/43722
Behavior rankings from observations
symbiont.csv (25 kB)
Symbiont and protein concentrations
gonad.csv (7 kB)
Gonad index
Description
Article publication details: Submitted to Science of The Total Environment.
Data Description
There are three CSV files of biological and observational datasets. 1. Behavior rankings from observations (behavior.csv) 2. Symbiont and protein concentrations (symbiont.csv) 3. Gonad index (gonad.csv)