Search Results (2)

Changing salinity in estuaries due to sea level rise and altered rainfall patterns, as a result of climate change, has the potential to influence the interactions of aquatic pollutants as well as to alter their toxicity. From a chemical property point of view, ionic concentration can increase the octanol–water partition coefficient and thus decrease the water solubility of a compound. Biologically, organism physiology and enzyme metabolism are also altered at different salinities with implications for drug metabolism and toxic effects. This highlights the need to understand the influence of salinity on pesticide toxicity when assessing risk to estuarine and marine fishes, particularly considering that climate change is predicted to alter salinity regimes globally and many risk assessments and regulatory decisions are made using freshwater studies. Therefore, we exposed the Inland Silverside (Menidia beryllina) at an early life stage to seven commonly used pesticides at two salinities relevant to estuarine waters (5 PSU and 15 PSU). Triadimefon was the only compound to show a statistically significant increase in toxicity at the 15 PSU LC₅₀. However, all compounds showed a decrease in LC₅₀ values at the higher salinity, and all but one showed a decrease in the LC₁₀ value. Many organisms rely on estuaries as nurseries and increased toxicity at higher salinities may mean that organisms in critical life stages of development are at risk of experiencing adverse, toxic effects. The differences in toxicity demonstrated here have important implications for organisms living within estuarine and marine ecosystems in the Anthropocene as climate change alters estuarine salinity regimes globally. Full article

Estuaries serve as important nursery habitats for various species of early-life stage fish, but can experience cooccurring acidification and hypoxia that can vary diurnally in intensity. This study examines the effects of acidification (pH 7.2–7.4) and hypoxia (dissolved oxygen (DO) ~ 2–4 mg L⁻¹) as individual and combined stressors on four fitness metrics for three species of forage fish endemic to the U.S. East Coast: Menidia menidia, Menidia beryllina, and Cyprinodon variegatus. Additionally, the impacts of various durations of exposure to these two stressors was also assessed to explore the sensitivity threshold for larval fishes under environmentally-representative conditions. C. variegatus was resistant to chronic low pH, while M. menidia and M. beryllina experienced significantly reduced survival and hatch time, respectively. Exposure to hypoxia resulted in reduced hatch success of both Menidia species, as well as diminished survival of M. beryllina larvae. Diurnal exposure to low pH and low DO for 4 or 8 h did not alter survival of M. beryllina, although 8 or 12 h of daily exposure through the 10 days posthatch significantly depressed larval size. In contrast, M. menidia experienced significant declines in survival for all intervals of diel cycling hypoxia and acidification (4–12 h). Exposure to 12-h diurnal hypoxia generally elicited negative effects equal to, or of greater severity, than chronic exposure to low DO at the same levels despite significantly higher mean DO exposure concentrations. This evidences a substantial biological cost to adapting to changing DO levels, and implicates diurnal cycling of DO as a significant threat to fish larvae in estuaries. Larval responses to hypoxia, and to a lesser extent acidification, in this study on both continuous and diurnal timescales indicate that estuarine conditions throughout the spawning and postspawn periods could adversely affect stocks of these fish, with diverse implications for the remainder of the food web. Full article