First record of imposex in Thais deltoidea (Lamarck, 1822) (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Thaididae) in Vitória, ES, Brazil

Abstract

One of the human activities that introduce chemical substances in the marine environment is the use of antifouling paints on ships hulls. Many formulations of these paints include biocides like organotins as tributyltin (TBT) or triphenyltin (TPT). The use of the organotin compound TBT as biocides in antifoulings for ship hulls or mariculture structures protection, associated or not to TPT, has demonstrated to cause lethal or sublethal damage in many marine species (FENT, 1996), even at ppt concentrations (ALZIEU, 1998). This toxicity has led to a progressive control of the application of organotin compounds in France, in the United Kingdom, in the USA, in Japan, Australia and New Zeeland and also in Germany, Sweden and Demark since the late eighties (CHAMP, 2000). The use of organotins in antifoulings is to be globally banned by IMO (International Maritime Organization - www.imo.org), but the ban originally scheduled to 2003 has not yet entered in force, because the required number of countries ratifying it was reached only by late 2007 (see References for details). These compounds are considered a threat to marine life in areas with intense naval activities and can act as endocrine disruptors in marine invertebrates, mainly gastropods (FIORONI; OEHLMANN; STROBEN, 1991; MATTHIESSEN; GIBBS, 1998; AXIAK et al