Drugs in the wild: Evaluating the impacts of pharmaceutical pollution in aquatic ecosystems, from individuals to animal communities

The increasing release of pharmaceutical pollutants into waterways is now a leading global threat to aquatic wildlife and ecosystems.

Despite this, knowledge on the hazards that these contaminants cause in complex ecosystems is still extremely poor and thus considered an urgent research priority.

My project will harness new developments in underwater animal tracking, computer automation, and targeted exposure devices to identify how pharmaceutical waste in the environment can induce behavioural changes in animals that lead to higher-order ecological effects.

Using fish as a model system, I will trace the impact of pharmaceuticals across biological scales through a series of well-integrated experiments addressing four objectives: I will (1) test how environmentally relevant concentrations of two globally pervasive pharmaceuticals (clobazam and tramadol), both in isolation and in a mixture, influence ecologically important wildlife behaviours and variability; (2) identify whether, and how, such changes impact animal collectives; (3) determine how pharmaceutical-induced behavioural changes at the individual and group levels scale up to shape aquatic communities; and (4) uncover how exposure shapes the ecological interactions of multiple species.

This project will deliver urgently needed data to key stakeholders for incorporating behavioural endpoints into chemical risk modelling, and for developing policies regarding the regulation of pharmaceuticals in the environment.