Life Sciences Commons^™

Effects Of The Herbicide Atrazine On Members Of The Freshwater Genus Hydra, James Dal Santo

Biology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Atrazine is a commercially available herbicide with known effects on the hormone levels in frogs and several other organisms. This effect has not been significantly studied in invertebrates, even though observing invertebrate levels represent a very common assay the health of a freshwater ecosystem. To study the effects of atrazine in invertebrates, hydra were subjected to environmental (10 μg/L) and high (400 μg/L) concentrations of atrazine and observed for changes in fertility and reproduction over a period of four weeks. No significant changes in fertility or reproduction were found at high concentrations, and environmental concentration testing is currently in progress, …