Polverino, Giovanni and Martin, Jake M. and Bertram, Michael and Soman, Vrishin R. and Tan, Hung and Brand, Jack A. and Mason, Rachel T. and Wong, Bob B. M.
(2021).
Psychoactive pollution suppresses individual differences in fish behaviour.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 288
, 20202294
[Research article]
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Abstract
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.
Authors/Creators: | Polverino, Giovanni and Martin, Jake M. and Bertram, Michael and Soman, Vrishin R. and Tan, Hung and Brand, Jack A. and Mason, Rachel T. and Wong, Bob B. M. | ||||
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Title: | Psychoactive pollution suppresses individual differences in fish behaviour | ||||
Series Name/Journal: | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences | ||||
Year of publishing : | 2021 | ||||
Volume: | 288 | ||||
Article number: | 20202294 | ||||
Number of Pages: | 9 | ||||
ISSN: | 0962-8452 | ||||
Language: | English | ||||
Publication Type: | Research article | ||||
Article category: | Scientific peer reviewed | ||||
Version: | Published version | ||||
Full Text Status: | Public | ||||
Subjects: | (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 1 Natural sciences > 106 Biological Sciences (Medical to be 3 and Agricultural to be 4) > Zoology (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 1 Natural sciences > 106 Biological Sciences (Medical to be 3 and Agricultural to be 4) > Ecology (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 1 Natural sciences > 106 Biological Sciences (Medical to be 3 and Agricultural to be 4) > Behavioural Sciences Biology | ||||
Keywords: | animal personality, behavioural plasticity, behavioural types, ecotoxicology, individuality, pharmaceuticals | ||||
URN:NBN: | urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-110758 | ||||
Permanent URL: | http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-110758 | ||||
Additional ID: |
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ID Code: | 22680 | ||||
Faculty: | S - Faculty of Forest Sciences | ||||
Department: | (S) > Dept. of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies | ||||
Deposited By: | SLUpub Connector | ||||
Deposited On: | 01 Mar 2021 10:23 | ||||
Metadata Last Modified: | 03 Jan 2022 10:03 |
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