Habitat selection response of the freshwater shrimp Atyaephyra desmarestii experimentally exposed to heterogeneous copper contamination scenarios

Assessment of Advanced Oxidation Processes Using Zebrafish in a Non-Forced Exposure System: A Proof of Concept

“…As initially described by different authors [15,18,62], the avoidance test in a non-forced exposure system allows the simulation of different scenarios, in which contaminants are discharged into the aquatic ecosystems and, then, the effects on the spatial distribution of organisms can be measured. The non-forced exposure approach allows the spatial integration of habitats that are commonly treated as independent and isolated areas in the classical exposure approaches [17,19]. The importance of considering that habitats are connected relies on understanding how the effect observed in an ecosystem could affect other undisturbed adjacent ones [63,64] under a meta-ecosystem approach.…”

“…The behavior of living organisms in water in response to the presence of pollutants allowed the development of ecotoxicological strategies to evaluate the quality of water and even some trends. One strategy involves the non-forced exposition of organisms such as fish, tadpoles and shrimps to samples of water of different quality, allowing the organisms to move, avoiding contamination [15][16][17]. In this way, the tests do not result in the death of the organisms (the main difference with classical toxicological tests); instead, the organisms simply move to a specific compartment, allowing researchers to identify the water with the highest quality.…”

Not Only Toxic but Repellent: What Can Organisms’ Responses Tell Us about Contamination and What Are the Ecological Consequences When They Flee from an Environment?

“…These authors observed that among the different lineages tested, the sensitivity and early reactiveness of the organisms to avoid copper was directly related to the lethal sensitivity of the lineages. Other invertebrates such as the cladoceran D. magna (exposed to pulp mill effluents [53]; atrazine [51]; and salinity as stress factor [54]), the freshwater copepod Boeckella occidentalis intermedia (crude oil as the contaminant [55]), the ostracod Heterocypris incongruens (salinity as the stress factor [54]), the gastropod Peringia ulvae (sediment spiked with cadmium [56]), the freshwater shrimp Atyaephyra desmarestii (exposure to copper [39,[57][58][59]), the marine shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei (exposed to copper [60,61]), and the saltmarsh shrimp Palaemon varians (exposed to musks and sunscreens [25,62]) have been tested for avoidance. In general, the avoidance response reported in those studies was more sensitive than the lethal and some sub-lethal endpoints described by other authors (see references cited above).…”

“…The use of systems such as HeMHAS favors an understanding of the importance that uncontaminated zones might represent as potential areas (refuges) to protect populations against contamination and alleviate individuals from a continuous stress [39]. These authors showed experimentally that in patchy contamination scenarios, the shrimps A. desmarestii could present a distribution partially conditioned by copper contamination and dependent on the presence of clean areas in the environment.…”

“…The discussion focuses on the dichotomy between toxicity and repellency ( Figure 1), considering their major differences, both methodological (forced exposure against non-forced multi-compartmented exposure systems) and conceptual (individual stress due to the toxic effects caused by a continuous exposure against contamination-driven spatial distribution). Regarding the exposure approach to assess repellency, we have exclusively focused on non-forced multi-compartmented exposure systems because they are a more complex method capable of simulating environmental heterogeneity, either as gradients or patches of contamination [22,30,39]. Secondly, a brief comparison between the repellency and toxicity of some chemicals is provided.…”