Microplastics are sometimes considered not harmful at environmentally relevant concentrations. Yet, such studies were conducted under standard thermal conditions and thereby ignored the impacts of higher mean temperatures (MT), and especially daily temperature fluctuations (DTF) under global warming. Moreover, an evolutionary perspective may further benefit the future risk assessment of microplastics under global warming. Here, we investigated the effects of two generations of exposure to an environmentally relevant concentration of polystyrene microplastics (5 μg L⁻¹) under six thermal conditions (2 MT × 3 DTF) on the life history, physiology, and behaviour of Daphnia magna. To assess the impact of thermal evolution we thereby compared Daphnia populations from high and low latitudes. At the standard ecotoxic thermal conditions (constant 20 °C) microplastics almost had no effect except for a slight reduction of the heartbeat rate. Yet, at the challenging thermal conditions (higher MT and/or DTF), microplastics affected each tested variable and caused an earlier maturation, a higher fecundity and intrinsic growth rate, a decreased heartbeat rate, and an increased swimming speed. These effects may be partly explained by hormesis and/or an adaptive response to stress in Daphnia. Moreover, exposure to microplastics at the higher mean temperature increased the fecundity and intrinsic growth rate of cold-adapted high-latitude Daphnia, but not of the warm-adapted low-latitude Daphnia, suggesting that thermal evolution in high-latitude Daphnia may buffer the effects of microplastics under future warming. Our results highlight the critical importance of DTF and thermal evolution for a more realistic risk assessment of microplastics under global warming.

Biological invasions and continued salinization of freshwater are two global issues with largely serious ecological consequences. Increasing salinity in freshwater systems, as an environmental stressor, may negatively affect normal life activities in fish. It has been documented that salinity limits the invasive success of alien species by mediating physiological and life-history performances, however, there are few studies on how salinity affects its invasive process via altered behaviors. Using wild-caught invasive western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis) as animal model, in this study, we asked whether gradual increasing salinity affects behaviors (personality and mate choice decision here), life-history traits, as well as the correlation between them by exposing G. affinis to three levels salinity (freshwater, 10 and 20‰). Results showed that, with increased salinity, male tended to be shyer, less active, less sociable, and reduced desire to mate, and female tended to be shyer, less active and lost preferences for the larger male. Furthermore, across salinity treatments, male exhibited reduced body fat content and rising reproduction allocation, however, pregnant female revealed diametrically opposed trends. In addition, the correlation between life-history traits and behaviors was only identified in pregnant female. It seems that either salinity or life-history traits directly affects mosquitofish behaviors. In summary, our results partially emphasize the harmful consequences of salinity on both life-history traits and behavioral performances. These findings provide a novel perspective on how salinity potentially affect fish fitness via altering personalities, mate choice decisions, as well as body condition, and hence supports the idea that salinity could affect the spread of invasive mosquitofish.

The salinization of the global freshwater system caused by various human activities and climate change has become a common problem threatening freshwater biodiversity and resources, which may affect a variety of species of cladocerans at individual and population levels. In order to comprehensively evaluate the impact of salinization on different-sized cladocerans at individual and population levels, we exposed two species of cladocerans with obvious body size difference, Daphnia magna and Moina macrocopa, to seven salinities (0, 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.10, 0.12 M), recorded individual life history traits and population growth dynamics, and used multiple mechanistic models to fit the data. At the individual level, the median effect concentration of survival time, total offspring per female, and number of broods of D. magna were significantly higher than those of M. macrocopa. At the population level, the decrease in carrying capacity of D. magna with increasing salinity was significantly less than that of M. macrocopa. At the same salinity treatment, the integrated biomarker response indexes value of M. macrocopa is higher than that of D. magna. Therefore, it was further inferred that the sensitivity of small-sized species M. macrocopa to salinity stress is significantly higher than that of big-sized species D. magna. Thus, freshwater salinization may result in the replacement of smaller salt-intolerant cladocerans with larger salt-tolerant cladocerans, which may have dramatic effects on freshwater communities and ecosystems. Additionally, the increase of salinity had a greater impact on the population level of D. magna and M. macrocopa than on the individual level, indicating that population level of cladocerans was more susceptible to salinity stress. Experiments only based on individuals may underestimate the ecologically related changes in populations and communities, thus understanding the impact of salinization on freshwater systems needs to consider multiple ecological levels.

Pollution damages ecosystems around the globe and some forms of pollution, like oil pollution, can be either man-made or derived from natural sources. Despite the pervasiveness of oil pollution, certain organisms are able to colonise polluted or toxic environments, yet we only have a limited understanding of how they are affected by it. Here, we analysed phenotypic responses to oil pollution in guppies (Poecilia reticulata) living in oil-polluted habitats across southern Trinidad. We analysed body-shape and life-history traits for 352 individuals from 11 independent populations, six living in oil-polluted environments (including the naturally oil-polluted Pitch Lake), and five stemming from non-polluted habitats. Based on theory of, and previous studies on, responses to environmental stressors, we predicted guppies from oil-polluted waters to have larger heads and shallower bodies, to be smaller, to invest more into reproduction, and to produce more but smaller offspring compared to guppies from non-polluted habitats. Contrary to most of our predictions, we uncovered strong population-specific variation regardless of the presence of oil pollution. Moreover, guppies from oil-polluted habitats were characterised by increased body size; rounder, deeper bodies with increased head size; and increased offspring size, when compared to their counterparts from non-polluted sites. This suggests that guppies in oil-polluted environments are not only subject to the direct negative effects of oil pollution, but might gain some (indirect) benefits from other concomitant environmental factors, such as reduced predation and reduced parasite load. Our results extend our knowledge of organismal responses to oil pollution and highlight the importance of anthropogenic pollution as a source of environmental variation. They also emphasise the understudied ecological heterogeneity of extreme environments.

Amphibian larvae are commonly used as indicators of aquatic ecosystem health because they are susceptible to contaminants. However, there is limited information on how species characteristics and trophic position influence contaminant loads in larval amphibians. Importantly, there remains a need to understand whether grazers (frogs and toads [anurans]) and predators (salamanders) provide comparable information on contaminant accumulation or if they are each indicative of unique environmental processes and risks. To better understand the role of trophic position in contaminant accumulation, we analyzed composite tissues for 10 metals from larvae of multiple co-occurring anuran and salamander species from 20 wetlands across the United States. We examined how metal concentrations varied with body size (anurans and salamanders) and developmental stage (anurans) and how the digestive tract (gut) influenced observed metal concentrations. Across all wetlands, metal concentrations were greater in anurans than salamanders for all metals tested except mercury (Hg), selenium (Se), and zinc (Zn). Concentrations of individual metals in anurans decreased with increasing weight and developmental stage. In salamanders, metal concentrations were less correlated with weight, indicating diet played a role in contaminant accumulation. Based on batches of similarly sized whole-body larvae compared to larvae with their digestive tracts removed, our results indicated that tissue type strongly affected perceived concentrations, especially for anurans (gut represented an estimated 46–97% of all metals except Se and Zn). This suggests the reliability of results based on whole-body sampling could be biased by metal, larval size, and development. Overall, our data shows that metal concentrations differs between anurans and salamanders, which suggests that metal accumulation is unique to feeding behavior and potentially trophic position. To truly characterize exposure risk in wetlands, species of different life histories, sizes and developmental stages should be included in biomonitoring efforts.

Chemical pollutants, such as pesticides, often leach into aquatic environments and impact non-target organisms. Marine invertebrates have complex life cycles with multiple life-history stages. Exposure to pesticides during one life-history stage potentially influences subsequent stages; a process known as a carry-over effect. Here, we investigated carry-over effects on the jellyfish Aurelia coerulea. We exposed polyps to individual and combined concentrations of atrazine (2.5 μg/L) and chlorpyrifos (0.04 μg/L) for four weeks, after which they were induced to strobilate. The resultant ephyrae were then redistributed and exposed to either the same conditions as their parent-polyps or to filtered seawater to track potential carry-over effects. The percentage of deformities, ephyrae size, pulsation and respiration rates, as well as the metabolic profile of the ephyrae, were measured. We detected a subtle carry-over effect in two metabolites, acetoacetate and glycerophosphocholine, which are precursors of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, important for energy metabolism and osmoregulation of the ephyrae. Although these carry-over effects were not reflected in the other response variables in the short-term, a persistent reduction of these two metabolites could have negative physiological consequences on A. coerulea jellyfish in the long-term. Our results highlight the importance of considering more than one life-history stage in ecotoxicology, and measuring a range of variables with different sensitivities to detect sub-lethal effects caused by anthropogenic stressors. Furthermore, since we identified few effects when using pesticides concentrations corresponding to Australian water quality guidelines, we suggest that future studies consider concentrations detected in the environment, which are higher than the water quality guidelines, to obtain a more realistic scenario by possible risk from pesticide exposure.

Many prey organisms adaptively respond to predation risk by inducible defenses with underlying tradeoffs in resource allocation. Cyanobacterial blooms expose zooplankton to poor food conditions, affecting the herbivores’ fitness. Given the interferences on resources allocation and life history traits, poor-quality cyanobacteria are predicted to affect the adaptive predator-induced responses in zooplankton. Here, we exposed two clones (i.e., clones SH and ZJ) of the cladoceran Daphnia mitsukuri to different combinations of fish predation cues and diets containing toxic Microcystis aeruginosa (0%–30%). D. mitsukuri matured at a small size and had elongated relative tail spine as adaptive responses to fish cues. Despite the comparable tail spine defense, fish cue-induced changes in growth and reproduction in the clone SH were more pronounced than those in the clone ZJ under no M. aeruginosa. Animals accumulated microcystin in the whole body with increasing abundance of M. aeruginosa. However, the inducible enhanced tail spine allometry was not affected, resulting in unchanged tail spine defense by Daphnia under all M. aeruginosa treatments. By contrast, M. aeruginosa remarkably decreased the adaptive maturation size and the offspring number in all animals. However, the inducible reproductive effort tended to increase or remain unchanged depending on clones associated with the constant or decreased responses of the somatic growth effort under increasing M. aeruginosa. Our results suggested that toxic M. aeruginosa did not alter the resource allocation to antipredator morphological defense but affected the somatic growth and reproduction in D. mitsukuri under fish cues. The present study highlights the different effects of toxic cyanobacteria on adaptive predator-induced responses in zooplankton, promoting the understanding for the morphological defense-mediated predator–prey interactions in eutrophic environments.

The effect of chronic exposure of freshwater cladoceran Daphnia magna to low, environmentally relevant concentrations i.e 4 μgL⁻¹of ibuprofen (a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) in a laboratory experiment was studied. We observed the key life history traits of first and fifth generation individuals: age and size at first reproduction, number of first clutch eggs and individual growth rate. Moreover, chosen molecular/subcellular markers of experimental animals stress response such as triglyceride content, heat shock proteins (HSP) expression and DNA:RNA ratio were collected. Overall, chronic exposure to ibuprofen had no significant effect on the molecular markers nor on the life history parameters of the Daphnia. It did, however, caused lethal morphological deformities in embryos and juvenile daphnids. Depending on the clonal affiliation, exposure to a low dosage of ibuprofen over five generations resulted in the deformation of ∼3%–∼10% of the first clutch of offspring. Also, up to 90% of females carried at least one deformed embryo. This is the first time that research has revealed such an effect of ibuprofen on D. magna.

Elasmobranchs are particularly prone to accumulating contaminants due to their life history patterns and relatively high trophic position. However, several compounds, especially contaminants of emerging concern, have still not been well studied in this group. Here, we aimed to determine the occurrence and concentrations of several inorganic and organic contaminants in different tissues of the Brazilian guitarfish Pseudobatos horkelii. This species is a critically endangered species, endemic from the Southwest Atlantic which uses southern Brazilian waters as a nursery habitat. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), emerging pesticides, pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) and trace metals were determined in five biological tissues in order to assess the accumulation and organotropism of these compounds. Except for chlorothalonil and triclosan, all compounds were detected in, at least, one tissue, mostly in liver samples. All compounds differed among tissues, with liver presenting the higher concentrations of several contaminants, followed by muscle and gills. PAHs and PPCPs were the most detected analytes and presented the highest concentrations among tissues. Diclofenac levels were determined, for the first time in elasmobranchs, and were relatively high, when compared to other fishes. Finally, relatively high concentrations of PAHs, dichlofluanid and octocrylene in muscle might be suggestive of chronic exposure, presenting also human health implications. Regarding trace metals, contrary to most elasmobranch studies, Hg levels were low in all tissues, whereas Cd and Pb here higher in liver, and gills and blood samples, respectively. Our results indicate that P. horkelii is exposed to several organic and inorganic which might affect this species in a long-term scale. Concerning the determination of emerging contaminants, it is likely that other elasmobranchs are also exposed to these compounds and special attention should be given to this issue in order to predict future effects on this group.

Microplastic (MP) pollution is potentially a major threat to many aquatic organisms. Yet we currently know very little about the mechanisms responsible for the effects of small MPs on phenotypes, and the extent to which effects of MPs are modified by genetic and environmental factors. Using a multivariate approach, we studied the effects of 500 nm polystyrene microspheres on the life history and immunity of eight clones of the freshwater cladoceran Daphnia magna reared at two temperatures (18 °C/24 °C). MP exposure altered multivariate phenotypes in half of the clones we studied but had no effect on others. In the clones that were affected, individuals exposed to MPs had smaller offspring at both temperatures, and more offspring at high temperature. Differences in response to MP exposure were unrelated to differences in particle uptake, but were instead linked to an upregulation of haemocytes, particularly at high temperature. The clone-specific, context-dependent nature of our results demonstrates the importance of incorporating genetic variation and environmental context into assessments of the impact of plastic particle exposure. Our results identify immunity as an important mechanism underpinning genetically variable responses to MP pollution and may have major implications for predicting consequences of MP pollution.