Sammanfattning

Environmental contamination by pharmaceuticals is global, substantially altering crucial behaviours in animals and impacting on their reproduction and survival. A key question is whether the consequences of these pollutants extend beyond mean behavioural changes, restraining differences in behaviour between individuals. In a controlled, two-year, multigenerational experiment with independent mesocosm populations, we exposed guppies (Poecilia reticulata) to environmentally realistic levels of the ubiquitous pollutant fluoxetine (Prozac). Fish (unexposed: n = 59, low fluoxetine: n = 57, high fluoxetine: n = 58) were repeatedly assayed on four separate occasions for activity and risk-taking behaviour. Fluoxetine homogenized individuals' activity, with individual variation in populations exposed to even low concentrations falling to less than half that in unexposed populations. To understand the proximate mechanism underlying these changes, we tested the relative contribution of variation within and between individuals to the overall decline in individual variation. We found strong evidence that fluoxetine erodes variation in activity between but not within individuals, revealing the hidden consequences of a ubiquitous contaminant on phenotypic variation in fish—likely to impair adaptive potential to environmental change.

Nyckelord

animal personality; behavioural plasticity; behavioural types; ecotoxicology; individuality; pharmaceuticals

Publicerad i

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
2021, Volym: 288, nummer: 1944, artikelnummer: 20202294

SLU författare

• Bertram, Michael

  • Institutionen för vilt, fisk och miljö, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    
  • Monash University

Globala målen

Bevara och nyttja haven och de marina resurserna på ett hållbart sätt för en hållbar utveckling


UKÄ forskningsämne

Etologi
Ekologi
Zoologi


Publikationens identifierare

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2294

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/110758