Environmental stressors can enhance the development of community tolerance to a toxicant.

Ecosystems are subject to a combination of recurring anthropogenic and natural disturbances, such as climate change and pesticide exposure. Biological communities are known to develop tolerance to recurring disturbances due to successive changes at both the community and organismal levels. However, information on how additional stressors may affect the development of such community tolerance is scarce to date. We studied the influence of hydrological disturbance on the reaction of zooplankton communities to repeated insecticide pulses in outdoor microcosms. The communities were exposed to three successive pulses of the insecticide esfenvalerate (0.03, 0.3, and 3 µg/L) and to the gradual removal of water and its subsequent replacement over three cycles or to a constant water level. Except at the highest esfenvalerate concentration, the communities developed tolerance to the toxicant, as indicated by their decreasing reaction to subsequent insecticide applications, and this development was enhanced by hydrological disturbance. The pronounced decline of the key taxa Daphnia spp. through the combined action of the two stressors was identified as the main mechanism responsible for the increase in community tolerance under a fluctuating water level. Under a constant water level, the abundance of Daphnia spp. did not decrease significantly without the insecticide treatment, indicating that other mechanisms were responsible for the observed community tolerance. The present study shows that additional stressors can facilitate the development of community tolerance and that such facilitation is propagated through community-level mechanisms.

Intraspecific competition increases toxicant effects in outdoor pond microcosms.

Competition is a ubiquitous factor in natural populations and has been reported to alter the ecological impact of xenobiotics. We investigated conditions that mirror the natural variation of environmental factors. For this, different treatments were applied to 96 outdoor pond microcosms by shading the ponds and harvesting the communities. Then, the effect of esfenvalerate (0.03, 0.3, and 3 µg/L) on populations of Daphnia spp. was investigated. The pesticide effect and the sensitivity of Daphnia spp. in the context of a zooplankton community was increased by intraspecific competition 11 days after contamination. This relationship was most pronounced at 0.03 and 0.3 µg/L esfenvalerate, which were the concentrations that led to partial mortality. In contrast, interspecific interaction did not significantly alter the effect of the toxicant on Daphnia spp. Modelled concentration-response curves showed that the negative effects of the pesticide differed by a factor of up to 100 depending on the strength of intraspecific competition. In addition, a wider range of concentrations led to negative effects at high levels of intraspecific competition than at low levels. We argue that increased intraspecific competition reduces the availability of resources at the individual level and thereby increases the effect of contaminants. This knowledge about the interaction between competition and the response to toxicants is important in assessing the effects of these factors under field conditions.

Interspecific competition delays recovery of Daphnia spp. populations from pesticide stress.

Xenobiotics alter the balance of competition between species and induce shifts in community composition. However, little is known about how these alterations affect the recovery of sensitive taxa. We exposed zooplankton communities to esfenvalerate (0.03, 0.3, and 3 µg/L) in outdoor microcosms and investigated the long-term effects on populations of Daphnia spp. To cover a broad and realistic range of environmental conditions, we established 96 microcosms with different treatments of shading and periodic harvesting. Populations of Daphnia spp. decreased in abundance for more than 8 weeks after contamination at 0.3 and 3 µg/L esfenvalerate. The period required for recovery at 0.3 and 3 µg/L was more than eight and three times longer, respectively, than the recovery period that was predicted on the basis of the life cycle of Daphnia spp. without considering the environmental context. We found that the recovery of sensitive Daphnia spp. populations depended on the initial pesticide survival and the related increase of less sensitive, competing taxa. We assert that this increase in the abundance of competing species, as well as sub-lethal effects of esfenvalerate, caused the unexpectedly prolonged effects of esfenvalerate on populations of Daphnia spp. We conclude that assessing biotic interactions is essential to understand and hence predict the effects and recovery from toxicant stress in communities.

Elevated temperature prolongs long-term effects of a pesticide on Daphnia spp. due to altered competition in zooplankton communities.

Considerable research efforts have been made to predict the influences of climate change on species composition in biological communities. However, little is known about how changing environmental conditions and anthropogenic pollution can affect aquatic communities in combination. We investigated the influence of short warming periods on the response of a zooplankton community to the insecticide esfenvalerate at a range of environmentally realistic concentrations (0.03, 0.3 and 3 µg L(-1) ) in 55 outdoor pond microcosms. Warming periods increased the cumulative water temperature, but did not exceed the maximum temperature measured under ambient conditions. Under warming conditions alone the abundance of some zooplankton taxa increased selectively compared to ambient conditions. This resulted in a shift in the community composition that had not recovered by the end of the experiment, 8 weeks after the last warming period. Regarding the pesticide exposure, short-term effects of esfenvalerate on the community structure and the sensitive taxa Daphnia spp. did not differ between the two temperature regimes. In contrast, long-term effects of esfenvalerate on Daphnia spp., a taxon that did not benefit from elevated temperatures, were observed twice as long under warming than under ambient conditions. This resulted in long-term effects on Daphnia spp. until 4 months after contamination at 3 µg L(-1) esfenvalerate. Under both temperature regimes, we identified strength of interspecific competition as the mechanism determining the time until recovery. However, enhanced interspecific competition under warming conditions was prolonged and explained the delayed recovery of Daphnia spp. from esfenvalerate. These results show that, for realistic prediction of the combined effects of changing environmental factors and toxicants on sensitive taxa, the impacts of stressors on the biotic interactions within the community need to be considered.

Two stressors and a community: effects of hydrological disturbance and a toxicant on freshwater zooplankton.

Climate change models predict an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme fluctuations in water level in aquatic habitats. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the combined effects of hydrological fluctuations and toxicants on aquatic biological communities. We investigated the individual and combined effects of the insecticide esfenvalerate and recurring fluctuations in water level on zooplankton communities in a system of 55 outdoor pond microcosms. The communities were exposed to esfenvalerate contamination as a single pulse (at 0.03, 0.3, or 3µg/L) and gradual removal of water and its subsequent replacement over three cycles and monitored until 84 days after contamination. The results showed that the sensitivities of the community and its constituent populations to the toxicant were increased by the hydrological stress. Specifically, for both the community structure and abundance of Daphnia spp. the lowest-observed-effect concentrations (LOEC) were 0.03 and 0.3µg/L for the series with fluctuating and constant water levels, respectively. Despite these differences in sensitivity, the interactive effects of the two stressors were found to be additive for both the community structure and the abundance of the most affected species. Presumably, it was not possible to detect synergism due to the strong individual effects of the water level fluctuations. Recovery times in the series exposed to the highest pesticide concentration were 64 and 55 days under fluctuating and constant water level regimes, respectively. Competition and water quality are suggested to be the major factors that underlie the observed effects of fluctuations in the water level. For the ecological risk assessment of toxicants, the present results suggest that (i) community sensitivity may vary substantially, depending on the environmental context, and (ii) this variability can be assessed experimentally to derive safety factors (coefficients used to avoid unexpected effects and define safe concentrations of toxicants) based on empirical findings. This contrasts with the current approach where such factors are usually defined arbitrarily.

Environmental context determines community sensitivity of freshwater zooplankton to a pesticide.

The environment is currently changing worldwide, and ecosystems are being exposed to multiple anthropogenic pressures. Understanding and consideration of such environmental conditions is required in ecological risk assessment of toxicants, but it remains basically limited. In the present study, we aimed to determine how and to what extent alterations in the abiotic and biotic environmental conditions can alter the sensitivity of a community to an insecticide, as well as its recovery after contamination. We conducted an outdoor microcosm experiment in which zooplankton communities were exposed to the insecticide esfenvalerate (0.03, 0.3, and 3 µg/L) under different regimes of solar radiation and community density, which represented different levels of food availability and competition. We focused on the sensitivity of the entire community and analysed it using multivariate statistical methods, such as principal response curves and redundancy analysis. The results showed that community sensitivity varied markedly between the treatments. In the experimental series with the lowest availability of food and strongest competition significant effects of the insecticide were found at the concentration of 0.03 µg/L. In contrast, in the series with relatively higher food availability and weak competition such effects were detected at 3 µg/L only. However, we did not find significant differences in the community recovery rates between the experimental treatments. These findings indicate that environmental context is more important for ecotoxicological evaluation than assumed previously.