Chemical analysis of aquatic pheromones in fish

Pheromones are chemicals that pass between members of the same species that have inherent meaning. In the case of fish, pheromones are water-soluble and found in low concentrations. As such, sensitive and selective methods are needed to separate and analyze these pheromones from an environmental matrix that may contain many other chemicals. This chapter describes a generic method used to concentrate and identify these chemicals and two extremely sensitive and selective methods for analysis, namely, mass spectrometry and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.