Sexual dimorphic responses in wildlife exposed to endocrine disrupting chemicals

Understanding the gender similarities and differences in how organisms respond following exposure to environmental chemicals is important if we are to determine the relative risk of these agents to wildlife and human populations. In this paper, we have chosen to focus on the sex determination and differentiation of fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, because of their close association with the environment and the number of environmental factors (e.g., temperature and endocrine disrupting chemicals) that are known to affect these phenomena in these taxa. We have discussed examples of gender differences in response to exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals and found gender similarities about as often as we found differences. We found that most studies examined either one sex exclusively, or the experimental design did not include examining the effect of sex as a variable. Given the central role of sex steroid hormones in the sex determination and sexual differentiation of fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, we recommend that future research purposefully include sex as a factor, so that risk assessment by government agencies can address the probable gender differences in effects from exposure to chemicals in the environment.