Zercher, Sam, Department of Environmental Science, Juniata College, 1731 Mifflin Street, Huntingdon, PA 16652, zerchsa21@juniata.edu; Merovich, George, Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Juniata College, 1700 Moore Street Box 775, Huntingdon, PA 16652, merovich@juniata.edu.
Stormwater runoff from urban areas is a threat to aquatic ecosystems. Anthropogenic chemicals contained in this runoff negatively impacts sensitive organisms. For example, 6PPD-quinone (N-(1,3-Dimethylbutyl)-N′-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine-quinone), a common tire antidegradant, is responsible for Urban Runoff Mortality Syndrome (URMS), and is known to cause high spawn mortality in salmonids, such as Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and less so for others such as Brown Trout (Salmo trutta). This recent breakthrough on the dangers of 6PPD-quinone has created opportunities to address the nuances of this dangerous chemical within aquatic ecosystems and may add information explaining the dominance of brown trout over brook trout in native brook trout catchments. Therefore, this project proposes an initial study to investigate how 6PPD-q could play a role in brown trout being competitively dominant over brook trout, and thus explain some of the distribution patterns typically seen in these salmonids. We will sample water, benthic macroinvertebrates, and trout in streams in the Little Juniata River watershed upstream and downstream of road/urban runoff. Upstream locations will serve as controls and downstream locations will have sources of immediate road runoff and a putative source of 6PPD-Q. Lab analysis will test the concentration of 6PPD-q on water samples and tissues to measure the bioaccumulation of 6PPD-quinone in freshwater stream food chains. We expect impact sites to have high 6PPD-q in organisms with brook trout absent because of their sensitivity. Seeing as this research has interdisciplinary knowledge gaps, studies should be encouraged to explore the presence of 6PPD-quinone in local watersheds to identify areas of concern and species at risk. This is the first study to explore the influence of 6PPD-quinone on the distribution and abundance of brook and brown trout as well as to measure its bioaccumulation in freshwater stream food chains in the Little Juniata River.
Brook Trout, Brown Trout, 6PPD-quinone, bioaccumulation