Effects of an antihistamine on carbon and nutrient recycling in streams

High-speed imaging reveals how antihistamine exposure affects escape behaviours in aquatic insect prey

“…Antihistamines tend to differ in their propensity to bioconcentrate in aquatic invertebrates (Lagesson et al, 2016), with DPH showing much lower BCF than, for example, hydroxyzine, which also is the antihistamine previously found to affect the behaviour in damselfly larvae (Jonsson et al, 2014). There was also high degree of variation in antihistamine concentrations in both water and damselfly larvae, which has been seen in previous studies (Jonsson et al, 2014(Jonsson et al, , 2015, suggesting that uptake and/or depuration rates can vary extensively among insect individuals. However, this variation was not due to the different DPH concentration in the two treatments, which showed very similar BCFs.…”

“…As insects use histamines for neurotransmission (Hashemzadeh-Gargari and Freschi, 1992;Rosi-Marshall and Royer, 2012), exposure to antihistamines, even at low concentrations, has the potential to cause changes in physiology and behaviours of freshwater insects. This may be especially true, as bioconcentration of antihistamines in freshwater invertebrates (including insects) have been found to be very high, both in laboratory (Jonsson et al, 2014;Jonsson et al, 2015) and field (Lagesson et al, 2016) studies. Accordingly, one study found that predator-escape behaviours in damselfly larvae were altered following exposure to the antihistamines hydroxyzine or fexofenadine, but whether effects were detected or not depended on the specific behaviour measured and differed between the studied antihistamines (Jonsson et al, 2014).…”

Influences of the antidepressant fluoxetine on stream ecosystem function and aquatic insect emergence at environmentally realistic concentrations

“…Some contaminants, specifically pesticides and heavy metals, can adversely affect the diversity of stream detritivores and alter decomposition rates (Gessner et al 2010). However, decomposition studies involving pharmaceuticals are limited, and it is not clear whether there are any impacts at concentrations most commonly detected, for example leaf decomposition was not affected by addition of the antihistamine fexofenadine, but this compound did influence mediated carbon and nitrogen cycling (Jonsson et al 2015). Fluoxetine is known to have a relatively high absorption capacity to soil and organic matter (Kwon and Armbrust 2008), making stream organic matter a potentially contaminated food source for stream insects and microbes.…”

Antibiotic mixture effects on growth of the leaf-shredding stream detritivore Gammarus fossarum

“…Since gammarids, like all arthropods, can only grow by moulting, increases in body mass but a failure to moult would have fatal consequences. These results call for a more systematic consideration of the implications of environmental release of antibiotics, as well as other pharmaceuticals such as antihistamines (Jonsson et al 2015) or antidiabetics (Rosi-Marshall et al 2013). Besides the indirect effect pathway mediated by food quality (as an example for fungicides see Zubrod et al 2015c), impacts on the gut microflora and moulting success of invertebrates could be relevant and yet poorly understood effects of antibiotics in natural environments.…”

“…Pharmaceuticals acting as antihistamines and antibiotics can affect primary production, microbial respiration and other biological processes (Jonsson et al 2015; Rosi-Marshall et al 2013; but see Wilson et al 2004). Furthermore, the antibiotic ciprofloxacin affects the functional diversity (i.e., the ability to use different carbon sources) of leaf-associated microbial communities (Maul et al 2006), with potentially negative implications for microbial leaf decomposition and thus nutrient cycling in streams.…”