Pharmaceutical Pollution Alters the Structure of Freshwater Communities and Hinders Their Recovery from a Fish Predator.

ABSTRACT: Freshwater ecosystems are under threat from rising pharmaceutical pollution. While such pollutants are known to elicit biological effects on organisms, we have limited knowledge on how these effects might cascade through food-webs, disrupt ecological processes, and shape freshwater communities. In this study, we used a mesocosm experiment to explore how the community impacts of a top-order predator, the eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki), are mediated by exposure to environmentally relevant low (measured concentration: ∼10 ng/L) and high concentrations (∼110 ng/L) of the pervasive pharmaceutical pollutant fluoxetine. We found no evidence that exposure to fluoxetine altered the consumptive effects of mosquitofish on zooplankton. However, once mosquitofish were removed from the

SUBMITTER: Michelangeli M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11308527 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature