Meeting Abstract
Climate change is expected to differentially affect homeostatic processes of most animals, as well as their physiological capacity to mediate exposure to many interacting natural and anthropogenic stressors. Temperature shifts combined with increasing levels of contamination, for instance, might result in increased toxicity of certain contaminants, as organisms must allocate finite resources towards temperature regulation, cellular repair, and detoxification. Amphibians might be particularly sensitive to these interactions because their permeable skin offers little resistance to contaminant uptake. In addition, since most physiological changes during amphibian metamorphosis are mediated by hormonal regulation, temperature facilitated bioaccumulation of endocrine disrupting contaminants might result in altered larval development. One such endocrine disrupting contaminant is the flame retardant TDCPP (Tris (1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate). Limited information is available on the thresholds and mechanisms of toxicity of TDCPP under different environmental conditions. In order to address this issue, we chronically exposed Xenopus laevis larvae to environmentally relevant concentrations of TDCPP and monitored survival and developmental rates at different temperatures until metamorphosis. We investigated the effects of warmer temperatures on elimination of TDCPP metabolites from larval and juvenile tissues and measured expression of genes central to cellular integrity and metabolism in exposed individuals post-metamorphosis. We hypothesized warmer temperatures would increase ventilation and feeding rates in larvae, which in turn would result in higher exposure to TDCPP and more pronounced energetic tradeoffs between xenometabolism, growth, and inflammatory processes.
