Fish toxicity testing with selenomethionine spiked feed--what's the real question being asked?

The US Environmental Protection Agency and several U.S. states and Canadian provinces are currently developing national water quality criteria for selenium that are based in part on toxicity tests performed by feeding freshwater fish a selenomethionine-spiked diet.

Effect threshold for selenium toxicity in juvenile splittail, Pogonichthys macrolepidotus A.

In fish, selenium can bioaccumulate and cause adverse impacts. One of the fish species potentially at risk from selenium in the San Francisco Bay (California, USA) is the splittail (Pogonichthys macrolepidotus). Previous studies have derived a whole body NOAEL and LOAEL of 9.

Multiple parasite introduction and host management plan: case study of lutjanid fish in the Hawaiian Archipelago.

The bluestriped snapper Lutjanus kasmira and the blacktail snapper L. fulvus were deliberately introduced in the Hawaiian Archipelago from French Polynesia in the late 1950s to enhance local fisheries. These species rapidly spread all over the Windward Islands, became extremely abundant and, therefore, caused controversial environmental concerns.

Two new species of Camallanus (Nematoda: Camallanidae) from freshwater turtles in Queensland, Australia.

We describe 2 new species of Camallanus (Nematoda: Camallanidae) from freshwater turtles collected in Queensland, Australia: Camallanus nithoggi n. sp. from Elseya latisternum (Gray) and Camallanus waelhreow n.

Time-variable simulation of soil vapor intrusion into a building with a combined crawl space and basement.

A time-variable one-dimensional model (called ViM for Vapor Intrusion Model)to predict indoor vapor concentrations in a dwelling with a combined basement and crawl space has been developed. ViM predicts vapor concentrations in each of the three compartments. Volatile chemicals that intrude into the dwelling are assumed to originate from soil, groundwater (where an attenuating plume is simulated), or ambient air.

Some camallanid nematodes from marine perciform fishes off New Caledonia.

Two new, one known and three unidentified species of the nematode family Camallanidae are reported and described from the intestines of marine perciform fishes off the southwestern coast of New Caledonia, South Pacific: Camallanus carangis Olsen, 1952 from the forked-tailed threadfin bream Nemipterus furcosus (Nemipteridae), the yellowstriped goatfish Upeneus vittatus and the whitesaddle goatfish Parupeneus ciliatus (both Mullidae) (new host records); Procamallanus (Spirocamallanus) variolae sp. n. from the white-edged lyretail Variola albimarginata (type host) and the blacktip grouper Epinephelus fasciatus (both Serranidae); Procamallanus (Spirocamallanus) longus sp.

Why should parasite resistance be costly?

Parasite resistance is sometimes associated with fitness costs. Costs of resistance are fundamentally important in epidemiology, and in the ecology and evolution of host-parasite interactions. The cost of resistance is often envisioned as the cost of re-allocating limiting resources to resistance machinery from other traits.