Frogs+That+Adapt+to+Pesticides+are+more+Vulnerable+to+Parasites

Esha Srinivasan Science Daily Accessed on January 31st, 2018 []

Summary:

Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute determined that amphibians are able to rapidly develop a tolerance to chemicals such as pesticides which in turn causes a greater susceptibility to parasites. These amphibians can develop these tolerances by either acquiring a baseline tolerance and sequentially passing it on through generations, or developing inducible tolerance. Because of the fact that amphibians are exposed to many stressors, such as parasites, researchers conducted an experiment with 15 wood frog populations and determined that the degree of susceptibility for these frogs was related to how close they were located to agricultural fields. Additionally, the frogs that lived closer to agriculture grew more susceptible to ranavirus. After the results were found, the researchers wanted to call to attention the unpredictable nature that stressors can react with each other and to question the benefit of evolved tolerances.

Relevance to Course:

This is relevant to the course because it relates to toxic chemicals and their negative effects. In some cases, pesticides were acting as a mutagen and spreading immunities through generations. This also reflects the effects of industrialized agriculture and their “use of large amounts of fossil fuel energy, commercial fertilizers, and pesticides to produce large quantities of single crops” (Miller 280). As discussed in the Pesticide case, students learned that it is important to value long term effects of pesticides and not just the short term. The long term genetic effects that toxic chemicals could relay is this important in our study of pesticides and their effects.

Opinion:

I believe that increased testing should be something applied all across the board. Prevention is better than clean up which supports the idea that preventing bad situations like this one is more effective than trying to fix it. I also believe that humans should be more aware of how they are affecting other species. Using chemicals to better our quality of life is moral, however, negatively affecting other species is not. It is important that we are considering also the effects on human lives and not just animals and ecosystems. On top of that, wanting to better the quality of life for humans would for sure cause other people to be more aware and maybe be more conscious with how they use chemicals such as pesticides.

Law:

This article relates to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Control Act of 1972 which provides for the federal regulation of the use and distribution of of pesticides. This act also entails that before the Act can be approved by the federal government, it must be tested for any possible adverse effects on the environment. This law supplements this article because the article discusses the unforeseen consequences of pesticides on the amphibian population. This law calls to question the amount of testing that was done on these pesticides for this particular pesticide to be approved.

 This image taken by Brian Mattes is of a wood frog whose population is exposed to parasites when also exposed to pesticides.