A comparative survey of imposex in northeast Pacific neogastropods (Prosobranchia) related to tributyltin contamination, and choice of a suitable bioindicator

Abstract

Imposex, the manifestation of male morphological sex characters in females of functionally dioecious neogastropod taxa, is an abnormal response to tri-n-butyltin (TBT) contamination introduced to the marine environment in antifouling paints. Since the phenomenon has been thoroughly described only in Atlantic species, a comparative survey of field populations from British Columbia was undertaken, and field studies were carried out to assess the relative value as bioindicators of species in the genus Nucella from the Pacific coast. The majority of neogastropods studied to date have demonstrable signs of imposex, although this leads to sterilization of females in only a few species, depending on differences in the development in females of a palliai vas deferens. Within the Nucella species complex, N. lamellosa, N. canaliculata, and N. emarginata show promise as TBT bioindicators. Only the response of N. emarginata, however, was related to TBT bioaccumulation, based on measurements of a limited number of samples. This is attributed to the apparent irreversibility of imposex, the temporal variability of both environmental levels and tissue burdens of TBT, and the considerably shorter life-span of N. emarginata relative to that of N. lamellosa and N. canaliculata. The geographic distribution of imposex in Nucella spp. suggests that water-borne concentrations of TBT sufficiently high to induce imposex occur over large areas within British Columbia where exchange with oceanic water is limited.