Our sleep and anxiety meds may be polluting rivers and impacting fish

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-12-11 11:01

Australia; International; VIC; QLD

Image by Christopher Cutler from Pixabay

Pollution of lakes and rivers with the sleeping and anxiety medication, temazepam, may be impacting the fish that live there, according to Australian and Swedish research. Researchers in the lab exposed baby brown trout to levels of temazepam similar to what can be found in the environment and then tagged them and released them into a river in Sweden. They found that the fish that were exposed to the drug were less likely to successfully migrate and reach a lake downstream. The researchers say this could be because fish exposed to this drug were eaten by predators more - especially at the point where the river met the lake. The authors say the findings show that pharmaceutical pollution could negatively impact the health and persistence of wildlife.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Psychoactive pollutant alters movement dynamics of fish in a natural lake system

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Pharmaceutical pollution is an emerging threat to human health and global biodiversity. Psychoactive pharmaceuticals (e.g. antidepressants, anxiolytics) are commonly detected in our rivers and have the ability to alter animal behaviours that are crucial to survival and reproduction. We show that the anti-anxiety pharmaceutical pollutant temazepam altered movement dynamics and reduced the migration success of brown trout (Salmo trutta) in a natural Swedish lake system. These results have implications for the persistence of vulnerable fish populations in an increasingly polluted world.

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Research The Royal Society, Web page Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends).

Journal/
conference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Monash University, Griffith University

Funder: Funding was provided by the Swedish Research Council Formas (2020-02293 to M.G.B.; 2020-01052 to D.C.; 2020-00981 to E.S.McC.; 2022-00503 to M.M.; 2018-00828 to T.B.), the Kempe Foundations (SMK-1954, SMK21-0069 and JCSMK23-0078 to M.G.B.), the Marie-Claire Cronstedt Foundation (to M.G.B.), the ÅForsk Foundation (20-51 to M.G.B.), the Orsa Fisheries Conservation Area Association (to D.P.), the Oscar and Lili Lamm Memorial Foundation (FO2021-0016 to M.M.) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska Curie grant agreement (101061889 to M.M.).

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