US EPA

7456466 

Journal Article 

Pesticides toxicity in fishes: Biochemical, physiological and genotoxic aspects 

Srivastava, P; Singh, A; Pandey, AK 

2016 

Connect Journal 

16 

2 

199-218 

English 

During the last three decades, use of modern organic synthetic pesticides has increased about 40-folds in agriculture sector in order to enhance crops yield with low labour and effort. Various pesticides such as insecticides, herbicides, fungicides etc. are being used intensively in agriculture leading to numerous health-related problems due to indiscriminate applications of the same. These chemicals affect almost every system of environment especially aquatic ecosystems. Pesticides residues reach into the aquatic environment by surface run-off causing risk hazards for aquatic flora and fauna, fishes being one of the most affected organism. These residues enter in non-targeted animals via food chain threatening the ecological balance and biodiversity of the nature. Long-term exposure of pesticides induces physiological disturbances, behavioural dysfunctions, histopathological damages, haematological alterations, biochemical changes, immune-suppression, hormone disruption, diminished intelligence, reproductive abnormalities and cancer. Fishes serve as important bio-indicators for aquatic contamination to access the changes caused by human activities effectively and reliable monitoring bio-system to recognize and predict hazardous effects of pollutants. Since fish are rich sources of proteins and lipids, their health is very important for human. Dominant species in an area are most important indicators as they receive the full impact of the habitat for over longer periods. Therefore, the protection of aquatic ecosystem and water quality will be possible only with the judicious and rationalized applications of pesticides. 

Biochemical; Fishes; Genotoxic; Pesticide toxicity; Physiological; aspartate aminotransferase; atrazine; benomyl; carbamate insecticide; carbendazim; chlorothalonil; chlorpyrifos; cypermethrin; dichlorvos; endosulfan; fungicide; glycogen; herbicide; insecticide; isoproturon; lactate dehydrogenase; malathion; mancozeb; methomyl; metolachlor; monocrotophos; organophosphate insecticide; parathion methyl; pesticide; phorate; pyrethroid; quinalphos; succinate dehydrogenase; sulfur; unindexed drug; acute toxicity; agriculture; aquatic environment; aquatic flora; Article; behavior change; behavior disorder; biodiversity; Channa punctatus; channel catfish; chromosome aberration; Clarias batrachus; endocrine disease; environmental factor; fish; food safety; genotoxicity; goldfish; harvest; health hazard; histopathology; human; immunosuppressive treatment; lake trout; long term exposure; micronucleus; mortality; nonhuman; Oncorhynchus mykiss gairdneri; Perca flavescens; physiological process; Pimephales promelas; protein metabolism; risk assessment; risk factor