Abstract
Unconventional natural gas development (fracking) has been a rapidly expanding technique used for the extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania. There remains a knowledge gap regarding the ecological impacts of fracking, especially regarding the long-term health of native Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) populations. During the summer of 2015, Brook trout were sampled from twelve streams located in forested, northwestern Pennsylvania in order to evaluate the impacts of fracking on Brook trout. Four stream sites were undisturbed (no fracking activity), three had a developed well pad without fracking activity, and five had active fracking with natural gas production. Liver tissue was isolated from two to five fish per stream and underwent RNA-Seq analysis to identify differentially expressed genes between ecosystems with differing fracking status. Data were analyzed individually and with samples pooled within-stream to account for hierarchical data structure and variation in sample coverage within streams. Differentially expressed and differentially alternatively spliced genes had functions related to lipid and steroid metabolism, mRNA processing, RNA polymerase and protein regulation. Unique to our study, genes related to xenobiotic and stress responses were found as well as potential markers for endocrine disruption and saline adaptation that were identified in watersheds with active fracking activity. These results support the utility of RNA-Seq to assess trout health and suggest detrimental impacts of fracking on sensitive trout populations.
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Data availability
Data have been deposited to SRA under project accession number PRJNA729566.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the students and staff who assisted with field sampling and lab analyses. They would also like to thank the anonymous reviewer contributed to the quality of this manuscript. This work would not have been possible without the approval for sample collection by the PA Fish and Boat Commission and the Institute for Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at Juniata College. They would finally like to thank the Keystone Elk County Alliance in helping to provide housing for fieldwork.
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Work for this project was funded under an HHMI undergraduate grant program awarded to Juniata College.
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McLimans, C.J., Shelledy, K., Conrad, W. et al. Potential biomarkers of endocrine and habitat disruption identified via RNA-Seq in Salvelinus fontinalis with proximity to fracking operations in Pennsylvania headwater stream ecosystems. Ecotoxicology 31, 1044–1055 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-022-02564-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-022-02564-0