A COMPARATIVE SURVEY OF IMPOSEX IN NORTHEAST PACIFIC NEOGASTROPODS (PROSOBRANCHIA) RELATED TO TRIBUTYLTIN CONTAMINATION, AND CHOICE OF A SUITABLE BIOINDICATOR

Imposex, the manifestation of male morphological sex characters in females of functionally dioecious neogastropod taxa, is an abnormal response to tri-n-butyltin (TBT) contamination introduced to the marine environment in antifouling paints. Studies were carried out to assess the relative value as bioindicators of species in the genus Nucella from the Pacific coast. Most neogastropods studied to date have demonstrable signs of imposex, although this leads to sterilization of females in only a few species, depending on differences in the development in females of a pallial vas deferens. Within the Nucella species complex, N. lamellosa, N. canaliculata and N. emarginata show promise as TBT bioindicators. Only the response of N. emarginata, however, was related to TBT bioaccumulation, attributed to the apparent irreversibility of imposex, the temporal variability of both environmental levels and tissue burdens of TBT, and the considerably shorter life-span of N. emarginata relative to that of N. lamellosa and N. canaliculata. The geographic distribution of imposex in Nucella spp. suggests that water-borne concentrations of TBT sufficiently high to induce imposex occur over large areas within British Columbia where exchange with oceanic water is limited. -from Authors