Effects of environmentally relevant concentrations of citalopram in freshwater mesocosms.

Increased pharmaceutical usage has led to their widespread presence in aquatic environments, resulting in concerns regarding their potential environmental impacts. Antidepressants, particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like citalopram, are frequently detected in European surface waters. Acute laboratory studies have demonstrated that citalopram can inhibit algal growth, immobilise Daphnia magna, and may result in foot detachment (i.

Differential effects of pharmaceuticals and insecticides on swimming behaviour and survival in Gammarus pulex.

Many freshwater systems are continuously exposed to waste streams like municipal wastewater and agricultural runoff, leading to exposure to chemicals that can cause mortality and behavioural changes in aquatic organisms. While research has advanced our understanding of pesticide effects on behaviour of aquatic organisms, the impacts of pharmaceuticals are less understood. Psychopharmaceuticals are particularly interesting because they can act on nervous systems, potentially affecting the behaviour of aquatic organisms.

Combined stress of an insecticide and heatwaves or elevated temperature induce community and food web effects in a Mediterranean freshwater ecosystem.

Ongoing global climate change will shift nature towards Anthropocene's unprecedented conditions by increasing average temperatures and the frequency and severity of extreme events, such as heatwaves. While such climatic changes pose an increased threat for freshwater ecosystems, other stressors like pesticides may interact with warming and lead to unpredictable effects. Studies that examine the underpinned mechanisms of multiple stressor effects are scarce and often lack environmental realism.

A dynamic energy budget (DEB) model to assess the sublethal effects of imidacloprid toward Gammarus pulex at different temperatures.

Environmental ambient temperature significantly impacts the metabolic activities of aquatic ectotherm organisms and influences the fate of various chemicals. Although numerous studies have shown that the acute lethal toxicity of most chemicals increases with increasing temperature, the impact of temperature on chronic effects - encompassing both lethal and sublethal endpoints - has received limited attention. Furthermore, the mechanisms linking temperature and toxicity, potentially unveiled by toxicokinetic-toxicodynamic models (TKTD), remains inadequately explored.

Temperature induced changes in species distribution increases sensitivity of aquatic invertebrate communities to chemicals.

In this commentary, I will discuss how climate warming might influence the impacts of chemicals on (aquatic) ecosystems. It provides a commentary on Sinclair et al. (2024).

Assessing ecological responses to exposure to the antibiotic sulfamethoxazole in freshwater mesocosms.

Antibiotics are a contaminant class of worldwide concern as they are frequently detected in aquatic ecosystems. To better understand the impacts of antibiotics on aquatic ecosystems, we conducted an outdoor mesocosm experiment in which aquatic communities were exposed to different concentrations of the antibiotic sulfamethoxazole (0, 0.15, 1.

Integrating climate model projections into environmental risk assessment: A probabilistic modeling approach.

The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) convened a Pellston workshop in 2022 to examine how information on climate change could be better incorporated into the ecological risk assessment (ERA) process for chemicals as well as other environmental stressors. A major impetus for this workshop is that climate change can affect components of ecological risks in multiple direct and indirect ways, including the use patterns and environmental exposure pathways of chemical stressors such as pesticides, the toxicity of chemicals in receiving environments, and the vulnerability of species of concern related to habitat quality and use. This article explores a modeling approach for integrating climate model projections into the assessment of near- and long-term ecological risks, developed in collaboration with climate scientists.

Toxicokinetic-Toxicodynamic Model to Assess Thermal Stress.

Temperature is a crucial environmental factor affecting the distribution and performance of ectothermic organisms. This study introduces a new temperature damage model to interpret their thermal stress. Inspired by the ecotoxicological damage model in the General Unified Threshold model for Survival (GUTS) framework, the temperature damage model assumes that damage depends on the balance between temperature-dependent accumulation and constant repair.

The correlation between small papillary thyroid cancers and gamma radionuclides Cs-137, Th-232, U-238 and K-40 using spatially-explicit, register-based methods.

A steep increase of small papillary thyroid cancers (sPTCs) has been observed globally. A major risk factor for developing PTC is ionizing radiation. The aim of this study is to investigate the spatial distribution of sPTC in Sweden and the extent to which prevalence is correlated to gamma radiation levels (Caesium-137 (Cs-137), Thorium-232 (Th-232), Uranium-238 (U-238) and Potassium-40 (K-40)) using multiple geospatial and geostatistical methods.

Evaluating the effects of climate change and chemical, physical, and biological stressors on nearshore coral reefs: A case study in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.

An understanding of the combined effects of climate change (CC) and other anthropogenic stressors, such as chemical exposures, is essential for improving ecological risk assessments of vulnerable ecosystems. In the Great Barrier Reef, coral reefs are under increasingly severe duress from increasing ocean temperatures, acidification, and cyclone intensities associated with CC. In addition to these stressors, inshore reef systems, such as the Mackay-Whitsunday coastal zone, are being impacted by other anthropogenic stressors, including chemical, nutrient, and sediment exposures related to more intense rainfall events that increase the catchment runoff of contaminated waters.

Effects of antidepressant exposure on aquatic communities assessed by a combination of morphological identification, functional measurements, environmental DNA metabarcoding and bioassays.

The antidepressant fluoxetine is frequently detected in aquatic ecosystems, yet the effects on aquatic communities and ecosystems are still largely unknown. Therefore the aim of this study is to assess the effects of the long-term application of fluoxetine on key components of aquatic ecosystems including macroinvertebrate-, zooplankton-, phytoplankton- and microbial communities and organic matter decomposition by using traditional and non-traditional assessment methods. For this, we exposed 18 outdoor mesocosms (water volume of 1530 L and 10 cm of sediment) to five different concentrations of fluoxetine (0.

Using a Bayesian Network Model to Predict Risk of Pesticides on Aquatic Community Endpoints in a Rice Field-A Southern European Case Study.

Bayesian network (BN) models are increasingly used as tools to support probabilistic environmental risk assessments (ERAs), because they can better account for uncertainty compared with the simpler approaches commonly used in traditional ERA. We used BNs as metamodels to link various sources of information in a probabilistic framework, to predict the risk of pesticides to aquatic communities under given scenarios. The research focused on rice fields surrounding the Albufera Natural Park (Valencia, Spain), and considered three selected pesticides: acetamiprid (an insecticide), 2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (MCPA; a herbicide), and azoxystrobin (a fungicide).

Heatwaves, elevated temperatures, and a pesticide cause interactive effects on multi-trophic levels of a freshwater ecosystem.

Climate impacts of elevated temperatures and more severe and frequent weather extremes like heatwaves are globally becoming discernible on nature. While a mechanistic understanding is pivotal for ecosystem management, stressors like pesticides may interact with warming, leading to unpredictable effects on freshwater ecosystems. These multiple stressor studies are scarce and experimental designs often lack environmental realism.

Effects of the antidepressant fluoxetine on the swimming behaviour of the amphipod Gammarus pulex: Comparison of short-term and long-term toxicity in the laboratory and the semi-field.

Fluoxetine is one of the worlds most prescribed antidepressant, and frequently detected in surface waters. Once present in the aquatic environment, fluoxetine has been shown to disrupt the swimming behaviour of fish and invertebrates. However, swimming behaviour is also known to be highly variable according to experimental conditions, potentially concealing relevant effects.

The use of a simple model for the regulatory environmental risk assessment of pesticides in Ethiopia.

Pesticide registration in developing countries like Ethiopia is often not supported by substantiated risk assessment procedures. In this study, we evaluated the PRIMET (Pesticide Risks in the Tropics for Man, Environment and Trade) Registration_Ethiopia_1.1 model which is a tool developed to assess the risks to non-target protection goals.

Explicit Consideration of Temperature Improves Predictions of Toxicokinetic-Toxicodynamic Models for Flupyradifurone and Imidacloprid in .

In the face of global climate change, where temperature fluctuations and the frequency of extreme weather events are increasing, it is needed to evaluate the impact of temperature on the ecological risk assessment of chemicals. Current state-of-the-art mechanistic effect models, such as toxicokinetic-toxicodynamic (TK-TD) models, often do not explicitly consider temperature as a modulating factor. This study implemented the effect of temperature in a widely used modeling framework, the General Unified Threshold model for Survival (GUTS).

The effect of temperature on toxicokinetics and the chronic toxicity of insecticides towards Gammarus pulex.

A comprehensive understanding of chemical toxicity and temperature interaction is essential to improve ecological risk assessment under climate change. However, there is only limited knowledge about the effect of temperature on the toxicity of chemicals. To fill this knowledge gap and to improve our mechanistic understanding of the influence of temperature, the current study explored toxicokinetics and the chronic toxicity effects of two insecticides, imidacloprid (IMI) and flupyradifurone (FPF), on Gammarus pulex at different temperatures (7-24 °C).

Comparing the acute and chronic toxicity of flupyradifurone and imidacloprid to non-target aquatic arthropod species.

Flupyradifurone (FPF) is a new type of butenolide insecticide. It was launched on the market in 2015 and is considered an alternative to the widely used neonicotinoids, like imidacloprid (IMI), some of which are banned from outdoor use in the European Union. FPF is claimed to be safe for bees, but its safety for aquatic organisms is unknown.

Size- and sex-related sensitivity differences of aquatic crustaceans to imidacloprid.

Field collected aquatic invertebrates are often used as test organisms in the refinement of the standard Tier 1 risk assessment of various pollutants. This approach can provide insights into the effects of pollutants on the natural environment. However, researchers often pragmatically select test organisms of a specific sex and/or size, which may not represent the sensitivity of the whole population.

ECORISK2050: An Innovative Training Network for predicting the effects of global change on the emission, fate, effects, and risks of chemicals in aquatic ecosystems.

By 2050, the global population is predicted to reach nine billion, with almost three quarters living in cities. The road to 2050 will be marked by changes in land use, climate, and the management of water and food across the world. These global changes (GCs) will likely affect the emissions, transport, and fate of chemicals, and thus the exposure of the natural environment to chemicals.

A transportable temperature and heatwave control device (TENTACLE) for laboratory and field simulations of different climate change scenarios in aquatic micro- and mesocosms.

Future global climate change with higher mean temperatures and increased intensity and frequency of heatwaves as extreme weather events will affect aquatic ecosystems with, yet, unpredictable severity and consequences. Although models suggest increased risk of species extinction up to the year 2050 for series of different climate change scenarios, environmental complexity may result in unconsidered effects of future temperature alterations on ecosystems. Apart from these environmental changes, additional anthropogenic stressors, e.

Interactive effects of multiple stressors vary with consumer interactions, stressor dynamics and magnitude.

Predicting the impacts of multiple stressors is important for informing ecosystem management but is impeded by a lack of a general framework for predicting whether stressors interact synergistically, additively or antagonistically. Here, we use process-based models to study how interactions generalise across three levels of biological organisation (physiological, population and consumer-resource) for a two-stressor experiment on a seagrass model system. We found that the same underlying processes could result in synergistic, additive or antagonistic interactions, with interaction type depending on initial conditions, experiment duration, stressor dynamics and consumer presence.

Acute toxicity, bioaccumulation and elimination of prometryn in tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus).

Tilapia juvenile (Oreochromis niloticus) (mean weight 50.00 ± 10.00 g) were aqueous exposed to different concentrations of the herbicide prometryn to investigate its acute toxicity, bioaccumulation and uptake and elimination rates.