Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical compound commonly found in many plastics and epoxy resins. Plastic water bottles exposed to high temperature, such as being left in a hot car, will elute from the resin in the plastic and into the water. BPA eluted into water supplies has been shown to cause effects in the estrogen pathway. We used different snail species as the model organisms because snails reproduce rapidly as a whole and clean organic debris in the tank. This made snails an excellent indicator of harshness of the tank water. The species used were: Bridgesii (Pomacea bridgesii), Ramshorn snails (Family: Planorbarius), and Nerite (Neritina Family: Neritidae). The acute and chronic eco-toxicological effects of BPA have been shown to cause differences in fecundity, mortality, and hormonal regulation in various organisms. We examined the effects of five concentrations ranging from 3-5mg/L of BPA to determine the LC50 for each species of snail. We predicted to find that increased concentrations of BPA would result in higher rates of mortality and lower rates of fecundity due to previous studies completed. For mortality, we determined the lethal concentration (LC50) at which 50% of the populations died. To examine fecundity, we examined not only the numbers of egg clutches laid by survivors, but the numbers of eggs per clutch.
Results/Conclusions
All snails above 5 mg/l died before 12 hours, with a 100% survival rate of the remaining concentrations in the previous studies completed. Each snail species were separated into 5 experimental vessels with 5 snails in each concentration, totaling 30 vessels for the experiment. The LC 50 for various snail’s is observed and analyzed. In previous studies, Marisa cornuarietis were exposed to lower than environmentally relevant concentrations of BPA to examine mortality and fecundity. As the concentration of BPA increased the mortality rates increased as well as the rate of reproduction. We believed this may be a mechanism to produce numerous offspring to increase survival in the harsh water condition. Our results and the results of previous studies show that snails are affected by BPA at lower concentrations than those tested on other wildlife groups. Research conducted on model organisms helps further our knowledge on the chemical as well as its impact on animals and their probable correlation with humans. In subsequent studies, another aspect that can be further observed is why the number of clutches and eggs increased with higher concentration of BPA.