Route of exposure influences pesticide body burden and the hepatic metabolome in post-metamorphic leopard frogs

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2021-07, Vol.779 (C), p.146358-146358, Article 146358
• Main Authors: Glinski, Donna A., Van Meter, Robin J., Purucker, S. Thomas, Henderson, W. Matthew
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amphibians; Animals; Biomarkers; Body Burden; Dermal routes; Ecosystem; Metabolome; Pesticides; Pesticides - analysis; Pesticides - toxicity; Rana pipiens
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146358

Pesticides are being applied at a greater extent than in the past. Once pesticides enter the ecosystem, many environmental factors can influence their residence time. These interactions can result in processes such as translocation, environmental degradation, and metabolic activation facilitating exposure to target and non-target species. Most anurans start off their life cycle in aquatic environments and then transition into terrestrial habitats. Their time in the aquatic environment is generally short; however, many important developmental stages occur during this tenure. Post-metamorphosis, most species spend many years on land but migrate back to the aquatic environment for breeding. Due to the importance of both the aquatic and terrestrial environments to the life stages of amphibians, we investigated how the route of exposure (i.e., uptake from contaminated soils vs. uptake from contaminated surface water) influences pesticide bioavailability and body burden for four pesticides (bifenthrin (BIF), chlorpyrifos (CPF), glyphosate (GLY), and trifloxystrobin (TFS)) as well as the impact on the hepatic metabolome of adult leopard frogs (Gosner stage 46 with 60–90 days post-metamorphosis). Body burden concentrations for amphibians exposed in water were significantly higher (ANOVA p