Abstract:
Paraquat is one of the most widely used herbicide in agricultural activities.
Uncontrolled usage will lead to chemical runoff that runs directly into aquatic
ecosystem. The toxicant exposure is a common situation which has
considerable impact on the aquatic organism, namely fish. This study
provides significant evidences that paraquat does negatively impacted
Anabas testudineus health status. The research focuses on four different
biomarkers; fish behavioural changes, haematological parameters
evaluation, histopathological assessment and paraquat residual in fish
muscle. The 96h median lethal concentration (96hLC50) of paraquat was
16.81 mgL
-1
. The effects of sub lethal concentrations of paraquat on
behaviour, haematology and tissues were subsequently study by exposing
fish to 2, 5, 12 and 15 mgL
-1
paraquat. In behavioural study, exposed fish
exhibited significant changes (P<0.05) in frequent surface to bottom movement, erratic swimming, opercula movement, air gulping, excessive
mucous secretion, sluggish and swirling movement compared to control. The
erythrocyte indices (total erythrocyte count, haematocrit, haemoglobin, mean
corpuscular value and mean corpuscular haemoglobin) and leukocyte
indices (total leukocyte count) were determined in paraquat exposed fish.
