Persistent disruption of interspecific competition after ultra-low esfenvalerate exposure

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Schunck, Florian, Liess, Matthias
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author Schunck, Florian
Liess, Matthias
author_facet Schunck, Florian
Liess, Matthias
contents Field and mesocosm studies repeatedly show that higher tier process reduce the predictive accuracy of toxicity evaluation and consequently their value for pesticide risk assessment. Therefore, understanding the influence of ecological complexity on toxicant effects is crucial to improve realism of aquatic risk assessment. Here we investigate the influence of repeated exposure to ecologically realistic concentrations of esfenvalerate on the similarly sensitive species Daphnia magna and Culex pipiens in a food limited and highly competitive environment. We show that significant perturbations in population development are only present close to the EC50. In contrast, interspecific competition between species is already reduced at concentrations 3-4 orders of magnitude below the acute EC50. We conclude that extremely low, environmentally relevant concentrations can disrupt species interactions. This toxicant mediated alteration of competitive balances in ecological communities may be the underlying mechanism for shifts in species distribution at ultra-low pesticide concentrations. A realistic risk assessment should therefore consider these processes in order to predict potential pesticide effects on the structure of communities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2307_03605
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Persistent disruption of interspecific competition after ultra-low esfenvalerate exposure
Schunck, Florian
Liess, Matthias
Populations and Evolution
Field and mesocosm studies repeatedly show that higher tier process reduce the predictive accuracy of toxicity evaluation and consequently their value for pesticide risk assessment. Therefore, understanding the influence of ecological complexity on toxicant effects is crucial to improve realism of aquatic risk assessment. Here we investigate the influence of repeated exposure to ecologically realistic concentrations of esfenvalerate on the similarly sensitive species Daphnia magna and Culex pipiens in a food limited and highly competitive environment. We show that significant perturbations in population development are only present close to the EC50. In contrast, interspecific competition between species is already reduced at concentrations 3-4 orders of magnitude below the acute EC50. We conclude that extremely low, environmentally relevant concentrations can disrupt species interactions. This toxicant mediated alteration of competitive balances in ecological communities may be the underlying mechanism for shifts in species distribution at ultra-low pesticide concentrations. A realistic risk assessment should therefore consider these processes in order to predict potential pesticide effects on the structure of communities.
title Persistent disruption of interspecific competition after ultra-low esfenvalerate exposure
topic Populations and Evolution
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.03605