Monsanto’s Roundup Can Cause Amphibians to Change Shape
April 6, 2012 by admin
Filed under News Stories
April 6, 2012
Science Daily
By SD
“More evidence that Monsanto’s products are deadly and dangerous. Yes, the government does nothing about it.” –KTRN
The world’s most popular weed killer, Roundup®, can cause amphibians to change shape, according to research recently published in Ecological Applications. Rick Relyea, University of Pittsburgh professor of biological sciences in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and director of Pitt’s Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, demonstrated that sublethal and environmentally relevant concentrations of Roundup® caused two species of amphibians to alter their morphology. According to Relyea, this is the first study to show that a herbicide can induce morphological changes in a vertebrate animal.
Relyea set up large outdoor water tanks that contained many of the components of natural wetlands. Some tanks contained caged predators, which emit chemicals that naturally induce changes in tadpole morphology (such as larger tails to better escape predators). After adding tadpoles to each tank, he exposed them to a range of Roundup® concentrations. After 3 weeks, the tadpoles were removed from the tanks.
