Abstract
Climate change can exacerbate the effects of environmental pollutants on aquatic organisms. Pollutants such as human antidepressants released from wastewater treatment plants have been shown to impact life-history traits of amphibians. We exposed tadpoles of the wood frog Lithobates sylvaticus to two temperatures (20 °C and 25 °C) and two antidepressants (fluoxetine and venlafaxine), and measured timing of metamorphosis, mass at metamorphosis, and two behaviors (startle response and percent motionless). Antidepressants significantly shortened time to metamorphosis at 20 °C, but not at 25 °C. At 25 °C, tadpoles metamorphosed significantly faster than those at 20 °C independent of antidepressant exposure. Venlafaxine reduced body mass at 25 °C, but not at 20 °C. Temperature and antidepressant exposure affected the percent of tadpoles showing a startle response. Tadpoles at 20 °C displayed significantly more responses than at 25 °C. Exposure to fluoxetine also increased the percent of tadpoles showing a startle response. Venlafaxine reduced the percent of motionless tadpoles at 25 °C but not at 20 °C. While our results showed that antidepressants can affect the timing of metamorphosis in tadpoles, warmer temperatures overrode these effects and caused a reduction in an important reaction behavior (startle response). Future studies should address how warmer global temperatures may exacerbate or negate the effects of environmental pollutants.
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The data are available on Figshare.com: 10.6084/m9.figshare.22232647.
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Acknowledgements
We thank three reviewers for helpful comments.
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This work was supported by the Cross-Disciplinary Science Institute (X-Sig) at Gettysburg College. Additional funding was provided by the John McCrea and Marion Ball Dickson Professorship and Science Fund, the Eric E. Kolbe’65 Student-Faculty Research Fund, and the Randall S. Alberte Fund for Student/Faculty Research in Biology. The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.
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The corresponding author contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by Peter Fong, Aylin Doganoglu, Eleanor Sandt, and Sierra Turbeville. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Peter Fong and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript.
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Fong, P.P., Doganoglu, A., Sandt, E.V. et al. Warmer temperature overrides the effects of antidepressants on amphibian metamorphosis and behavior. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 114912–114919 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30607-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30607-4