Defences against ammonia toxicity in tropical air-breathing fishes exposed to high concentrations of environmental ammonia: A review

Abstract

In the tropics, air-breathing fishes can be exposed to environmental ammonia when stranded in puddles of water during the dry season, during a stay inside a burrow, or after agricultural fertilization. At low concentrations of environmental ammonia, NH3 excretion is impeded, as in aerial exposure, leading to the accumulation of endogenous ammonia. At high concentrations of environmental ammonia, which results in a reversed NH 3 partial pressure gradient (ΔPNH3), there is retention of endogenous ammonia and uptake of exogenous ammonia. In this review, several tropical air-breathing fishes (giant mudskipper, African catfish, oriental weatherloach, swamp eel, four-eyed sleeper, abehaze and slender African lungfish), which can tolerate high environmental ammonia exposure, are used as examples to demonstrate how eight different adaptations can be involved in defence against ammonia toxicity. Four of these adaptations deal with ammonia toxicity at branchial and/or epithelial surfaces: (1) active excretion of NH4 +; (2) lowering of environmental pH; (3) low NH 3 permeability of epithelial surfaces; and (4) volatilization of NH3, while another four adaptations ameliorate ammonia toxicity at the cellular and subcellular levels: (5) high tolerance of ammonia at the cellular and subcellular levels; (6) reduction in ammonia production; (7) glutamine synthesis; and (8) urea synthesis. The responses of tropical air-breathing fishes to high environmental ammonia are determined apparently by behavioural adaptations and the nature of their natural environments. © Springer-Verlag 2004.