Impaired Health in Flounder, Paralichthys spp. Inhabiting Coastal Chile

Abstract

Prolonged exposure of fish to a variety of pollutants can induce stress (Adams 1990). These include municipal effluent, PCBs, pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heavy metals in mine tailings, effluent from pulp and paper mills, etc. Manifestations of stress, which might culminate in a change of homeostasis, include reduced feed intake and impairment of growth and reproductive potential accompanied by immunosuppression. All of these factors could influence survival. Biomonitoring methods have been devised to assess the impact of pollution on fish health by comparing potentially contaminated and reference samples of the same species. These include body and organ indices, histopathological and hematological methods and the prevalence, abundance and diversity of parasites (Adams 1990; Khan and Thulin 1991; Overstreet 1993)