Water Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Burlington, ON, Canada.
Department of Biology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada.
Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2021 Apr 22;12:664157. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2021.664157. eCollection 2021.
Jackfish Bay is an isolated bay on the north shore of Lake Superior, Canada that has received effluent from a large bleached-kraft pulp mill since the 1940s. Studies conducted in the late 1980s found evidence of reductions in sex steroid hormone levels in multiple fish species living in the Bay, and increased growth, condition and relative liver weights, with a reduction in internal fat storage, reduced gonadal sizes, delayed sexual maturation, and altered levels of circulating sex steroid hormones in white sucker (). These early studies provided some of the first pieces of evidence of endocrine disruption in wild animals. Studies on white sucker have continued at Jackfish Bay, monitoring fish health after the installation of secondary waste treatment (1989), changes in the pulp bleaching process (1990s), during facility maintenance shutdowns and during a series of facility closures associated with changing ownership (2000s), and were carried through to 2019 resulting in a 30-year study of fish health impacts, endocrine disruption, chemical exposure, and ecosystem recovery. The objective of the present study was to summarize and understand more than 75 physiological, endocrine, chemical and whole organism endpoints that have been studied providing important context for the complexity of endocrine responses, species differences, and challenges with extrapolation. Differences in body size, liver size, gonad size and condition persist, although changes in liver and gonad indices are much smaller than in the early years. Population modeling of the initial reproductive alterations predicted a 30% reduction in the population size, however with improvements over the last couple of decades those population impacts improved considerably. Reflection on these 30 years of detailed studies, on environmental conditions, physiological, and whole organism endpoints, gives insight into the complexity of endocrine responses to environmental change and mitigation.
杰克鱼湾是加拿大苏必利尔湖北岸的一个孤立海湾，自 20 世纪 40 年代以来，一直有来自一家大型漂白纸浆厂的废水流入该湾。20 世纪 80 年代末进行的研究发现，在该湾生活的多种鱼类的性激素水平降低，生长、状况和相对肝重增加，体内脂肪储存减少，性腺缩小，性成熟延迟，以及循环性激素水平改变的证据。这些早期研究为野生动物内分泌干扰提供了首批证据之一。在杰克鱼湾，对白鮎的研究仍在继续，监测二级废水处理（1989 年）安装后、纸浆漂白纸浆漂白过程变化（20 世纪 90 年代）、设施维护停机期间和一系列与所有权变更相关的设施关闭期间（21 世纪 00 年代）的鱼类健康状况，研究一直持续到 2019 年，对鱼类健康影响、内分泌干扰、化学暴露和生态系统恢复进行了 30 年的研究。本研究的目的是总结和理解 75 个以上的生理、内分泌、化学和整体生物终点，为内分泌反应的复杂性、物种差异和外推的挑战提供重要的背景。尽管肝脏和性腺指数的变化比早期小得多，但体型、肝脏大小、性腺大小和状况的差异仍然存在。最初生殖改变的种群模型预测种群数量减少 30%，然而，在过去几十年中，这些种群影响得到了极大的改善。对这 30 年来的详细研究、环境条件、生理和整体生物终点进行反思，深入了解了内分泌对环境变化和缓解的反应的复杂性。
