Brand, Jack
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Zoological Society of London
Research article2025Peer reviewed
Pharmaceutical pollution influences river-to-sea migration in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)
Brand, Jack A.; Michelangeli, Marcus; Shry, Samuel J.; Moore, Eleanor R.; Bose, Aneesh P. H.; Cerveny, Daniel; Martin, Jake M.; Hellström, Gustav; McCallum, Erin S.; Holmgren, Annika; Thoré, Eli S. J.; Fick, Jerker; Brodin, Tomas; Bertram, Michael G.
Abstract
Despite the growing threat of pharmaceutical pollution, we lack an understanding of whether and how such pollutants influence animal behavior in the wild. Using laboratory- and field-based experiments across multiple years in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar; n = 730), we show that the globally detected anxiolytic pollutant clobazam accumulates in the brain of exposed fish and influences river-to-sea migration success. Clobazam exposure increased the speed with which fish passed through two hydropower dams along their migration route, resulting in more clobazam-exposed fish reaching the sea compared with controls. We argue that such effects may arise from altered shoaling behavior in fish exposed to clobazam. Drug-induced behavioral changes are expected to have wide-ranging consequences for the ecology and evolution of wild populations.
Published in
Science
2025, volume: 388, number: 6743, pages: 217-222
SLU Authors
Michelangeli, Marcus
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Griffith University
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Bose, Aneesh
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Cerveny, Daniel
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Martin, Jake
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Deakin University
- Monash University
- Stockholm University
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Hellström, Gustav
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Mccallum, Erin
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Holmgren, Annika
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Thoré, Eli
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- University of Leuven (KU Leuven)
- University of Namur
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Brodin, Tomas
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Bertram, Michael
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Monash University
- Stockholm University
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
UKÄ Subject classification
Behavioral Sciences Biology
Environmental Sciences
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adp7174
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/141583