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Combined toxic impacts of thiamethoxam and four pesticides on the rare minnow (Gobiocypris rarus)

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Abstract

To examine pesticide mixture toxicity to aqueous organisms, we assessed the single and combined toxicities of thiamethoxam and other four pesticides (chlorpyrifos, beta-cypermethrin, tetraconazole, and azoxystrobin) to the rare minnow (Gobiocypris rarus). Data from 96-h semi-static toxicity assays of various developmental phases (embryonic, larval, juvenile, and adult phases) showed that beta-cypermethrin, chlorpyrifos, and azoxystrobin had the highest toxicities to G. rarus, and their LC50 values ranged from 0.0031 to 0.86 mg a.i. L−1, from 0.016 to 6.38 mg a.i. L−1, and from 0.39 to 1.08 mg a.i. L−1, respectively. Tetraconazole displayed a comparatively high toxicity, and its LC50 values ranged from 3.48 to 16.73 mg a.i. L−1. By contrast, thiamethoxam exhibited the lowest toxic effect with LC50 values ranging from 37.85 to 351.9 mg a.i. L−1. Rare minnow larvae were more sensitive than embryos to all the pesticides tested. Our data showed that a pesticide mixture of thiamethoxam–tetraconazole elicited synergetic toxicity to G. rarus. Moreover, pesticide mixtures containing beta-cypermethrin in combination with chlorpyrifos or tetraconazole also had synergetic toxicities to fish. The majority of pesticides are presumed to have additive toxicity, while our data emphasized that the concurrent existence of some chemicals in the aqueous circumstance could cause synergetic toxic effect, leading to severe loss to the aqueous environments in comparison with their single toxicities. Thence, the synergetic impacts of chemical mixtures should be considered when assessing the ecological risk of chemicals.

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Data availability

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

The research was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. LY18C030004) and Zhejiang Province Key Research and Development Project (Grant No. 2020C02023).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-products, Key Laboratory for Pesticide Residue Detection of Ministry of Agriculture, Laboratory (Hangzhou) for Risk Assessment of Agricultural Products of Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Quality and Standard for Agro-products, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang, 310021, Hangzhou, China

    Guiling Yang, Lu Lv, Shanshan Di, Xinfang Li, Hongbiao Weng, Xinquan Wang & Yanhua Wang

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  1. Guiling Yang
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  2. Lu Lv
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  3. Shanshan Di
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  5. Hongbiao Weng
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  6. Xinquan Wang
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  7. Yanhua Wang
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Contributions

Guiling Yang: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, writing—original draft, funding acquisition, project administration, writing—review and editing. Lu Lv: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, writing—original draft. Shanshan Di: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, writing—original draft. Xinfang Li: conceptualization, writing—original draft, investigation, methodology, resources. Hongbiao Weng: conceptualization, writing—original draft, investigation, methodology, resources. Xinquan Wang: conceptualization, writing—original draft, investigation, methodology, resources. Yanhua Wang: conceptualization, writing—original draft, supervision, funding acquisition, project administration, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Yanhua Wang.

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Yang, G., Lv, L., Di, S. et al. Combined toxic impacts of thiamethoxam and four pesticides on the rare minnow (Gobiocypris rarus). Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 5407–5416 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10883-0

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