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Pesticide alters habitat selection and aquatic community composition

  • Conservation Ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Anthropogenic chemical contamination is an important issue for conservation of aquatic ecosystems. While recent research highlights that community context can mediate the consequences of contaminant exposure, little is known about how contaminants themselves might determine this context by altering habitat selection and thus initial community composition. Here we show that the insecticide carbaryl and its commercial counterpart Sevin can affect aquatic community composition by differentially altering oviposition and colonization of experimental pools by amphibians and insects. On average, contaminated pools received 20-fold more adult beetle and heteropteran colonists and 12-fold more Culex mosquito and chironomid midge egg masses. On the other hand, ovipositing Anopheles mosquitoes and cricket frogs showed no preference and we have shown previously that gray treefrogs strongly avoid contaminated pools. Overall, initial richness doubled in contaminated pools compared with controls. By affecting colonizing taxa differently and increasing richness, the contaminant may alter the ecological context under which subsequent effects of exposure will unfold. Given that community context is important for evaluating toxicity effects, understanding the net effects of contaminants in natural systems requires an understanding of their effects on community assembly via shifts in habitat selection.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to J. Buck, T. Giarla, S. Rosenberg for assisting in experiments; B. Allen, J. Chase, T. Knight, A. Randle, W. Resetarits, W. Ryberg, T. Steury, and R. Shulman for discussions that helped shape this research and/or for providing comments on the manuscript; and the staff at Tyson Research Center for logistical support. This research was funded by a Tyson Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis postdoctoral fellowship to J. R. V. Research was conducted according to Washington University IACUC/EHS protocol no. 20050173.

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  1. James R. Vonesh

    Present address: Department of Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1000 West Cary Street, P.O. Box 842012, Richmond, VA, 23284-2012, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tyson Research Center, Washington University in Saint Louis, One Brookings Drive, Campus Box 1229, St. Louis, MO, 63130-4899, USA

    James R. Vonesh

  2. Department of Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1000 West Cary Street, P.O. Box 842012, Richmond, VA, 23284-2012, USA

    Johanna M. Kraus

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Correspondence to James R. Vonesh.

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Communicated by Steven Kohler.

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Vonesh, J.R., Kraus, J.M. Pesticide alters habitat selection and aquatic community composition. Oecologia 160, 379–385 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-009-1301-5

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