Common frogs response to agrochemicals contamination in coffee plantations, Western Ghats, India

ABSTRACT

This study highlights the health status of frogs in coffee plantations of Western Ghats. Coffee is one of the major commercial crops in the Western Ghats of India. In these plantations, farmers extensively use agrochemicals including pesticides and synthetic fertilisers. The practice of agrochemical usage can negatively affect non-target organisms like amphibians. The area has reported many amphibian species living in and around plantations. A total of 334 frogs from reference sites (10 abnormal frogs) and a total of 258 frogs (19 abnormal frogs) were collected from contaminated sites. We considered major biomarkers like hepato-somatic index, gonado-somatic index, morphological abnormalities and acetylcholinestarse activities for evaluating the health status of frogs. In our study, the hepato-somatic index and gonado-somatic index were found to be higher in a grochemical contaminated sites. Whereas, acetycholine esterase activity in brain and liver tissues of frogs in contaminated sites were low compared to reference sites. High rate of incidence of morphological abnormality (7.36%), increased hepato-somatic index (14.86%) and gonado-somatic index (male; 8.88% and female; 17.51%) and low acetylcholine esterase activities in brain (41.5%) and liver (46.9%) indicates the lower health status of frogs living in coffee plantations that are regularly treated with agrochemicals.

KEYWORDS:

• Coffee plantation
• acetylcholinesterase activity
• hepato-somatic index
• gonodo-somatic index
• amphibians abnormality
• agrochemicals

Acknowledgements

Ganapati Hegde is thankful to Kuvempu University for providing facility to conduct this study. Dr H. G. Seetharam, Central Coffee Research Institute (CCRI) helped us in field work. Authors are thankful to Dr H. S. Santosh Kumar, Dept. of Biotechnology, Kuvempu University for his help to process the data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Ganapati Hegde did his Master of Science (M.Sc., Environmental Science) and Ph.D from Department of Environmental Science. His areas of specialization is ecotoxicology of amphibians. Currently he is working as Assistant Environmental Officer in Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, India.

Dr. S. V. Krishnamurthy is a Professor of Environmental Science, Kuvempu University, Karnataka, India. His areas of research expertise are habitat ecology and ecotoxicology of Amphibians in Western Ghats.

Dr. Gert Berger is a Horticulture engineer associated with Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research ZALF, Müncheberg, Germany. His areas of research expertise are Agricultural ecology with the focus on land use and nature conservation and Land use and governance.

Additional information

Funding

The present work was conducted under Inspire Fellowship programme of DST-Ministry of Science & Technology, Department of Science & Technology, Government of India. The award is made to Ganapathi Hegde for his Ph.D programme.