Structural and Functional Responses of Plankton to a Mixture of Four Tetracyclines in Aquatic Microcosms

Abstract

Pharmaceuticals are routinely detected at low concentrations in surface waters, but effects on non-target organisms are not well understood. Microcosms were used to assess ecological responses in freshwater ecosystems to a mixture offourtetracyclines commonly used in veterinary and human medicine. Triplicate microcosms were treated with tetracycline, oxytetracycline, doxycycline, and chlortetracycline, resulting in measured time-weighted average total mixture concentrations of 0, 0.080, 0.218, 0.662, and 2.29 microM, respectively. Responses were assessed in terms of structure and function based on measurements of zooplankton and phytoplankton communities, ecosystem productivity, and water quality. Effects were observed for some endpoints> or = the 0.218 microM treatment. The largest responses were concentration-dependent reductions in total phytoplankton abundance and species richness. Phytoplankton abundance recovered to control levels in all microcosms after treatment was terminated, and resilience (time to return to normal operating range during stress) was observed with respectto phytoplankton species richness. Zooplankton were generally unaffected by the tetracyclines. Responses also included decreased water clarity, lower oxygen concentration, and water temperature. Functional endpoints showed varying sensitivity. On the basis of dissolved oxygen concentrations, community respiration (R) increased while primary productivity (P) was unchanged with increased treatment concentration. The effects observed occurred at considerably greater concentrations than are currently measured in the environment, indicating minimal risk to aquatic organisms.

Insights into tetracycline adsorption onto kaolinite and montmorillonite: experiments and modeling

“…Due to the application of animal wastes as plant nutrient sources and soil amendments, TCs can accumulate in soil to the level of mg kg −1 (Hu et al 2008). Frequent application of TCs has raised emerging threat to ecological safety and human health, such as the adverse effects on soil microbial (ThieleBruhn and Beck 2005) and aquatic photosynthetic organisms (Wilson et al 2004), as well as triggering of the dissemination of antibiotic-resistant genes (Knapp et al 2010). All these Responsible editor: Marcus Schulz Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11356-015-4839-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.…”

Toxic effect of tetracycline exposure on growth, antioxidative and genetic indices of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

“…Data showed that tetracycline was detected at the concentration ranging from 0.09 to 6.0 μg L −1 in samples from treatment plant effluent, surface water, and ground water (Batt et al 2006). To date, ecological risk assessment of tetracycline has been widely conducted in using data from aquatic organisms (Eguchi et al 2004;Ferrari et al 2004;Wilson et al 2004;Sarmah et al 2006;Jiao et al 2008). However, little work has been performed on adverse biological effects of the antibiotics on agricultural crops.…”

Detectability of fifteen aquatic micro/mesocosms

“…The identification and grouping of species were according to Wilson et al (2004), the total species richness (plus potential species dominances) and abundance was determined for each trophospecies (Yodzis 1988) group and for the entire community (Yodzis 1988). The use of trophospecies in micro/mesocosm studies is supported by the lack of knowledge in distinguishing the relative ecological niche and roles for the vast majority of species within a group (e.g.…”

“…Hence, an extensive list of different Rotifera species is empty information with low associated cost-efficiency if unable to distinguish and subsequently model the species ecological traits. Therefore, we recorded the species richness within each group and the total abundance within each group, but not the total abundance of each species within each group (Wilson et al 2004).…”