OTTAWA, December 3, 2009 — The controversy surrounding the unintended effects of herbicide and pesticide use has intensified as researchers from the University of Ottawa’s Department of Biology have identified that atrazine, a heavily-used herbicide, alters the sexual development in frogs. There have been numerous scientific and journalistic reports on the detrimental effects of herbicides, including atrazine, yet investigations by other research teams report no adverse effects of the popular herbicide. In an attempt to help resolve differences between the various reports, Dr. Vance Trudeau and his team at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Advanced Research in Environmental Genomics developed a system to evaluate the effects of a commercial formulation of atrazine. Specifically, PhD student Valérie Langlois applied it to outdoor tanks where tadpoles of leopard frogs were kept for an entire spring and summer. Under these semi-natural conditions in mesocosms, the levels of atrazine were low and comparable to those measured in the Canadian environment. At the end of the summer, the results showed that atrazine levels in the tanks were at levels within currently acceptable guidelines. However, researchers also found that the herbicide reduced the number of tadpoles reaching the froglet stage. Also noteworthy was that atrazine had a feminizing effect on the animal, resulting in sex ratios favouring females, with a reduced number of males. This study, recently available online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, raises important questions about the level of atrazine in the environment, and its negative effects on animal development. …
Study finds weed killer affects frogs sexually
I guess maybe that explains why the spring peepers weren't singing last spring!
25 years ago, the sound of the spring peepers from the boggy wetlands around my home was deafening all night. One morning on the way to school when the chorus was typically loud, my daughter asked me what were they doing and I said (my badI!) they are saying fuck me..no, fuck me!!!
Ewhhhh, she was horrorstruck.
We don't hear them anymore, much.