Prozac pollution: Our meds are affecting our fishy friends

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-02-10 11:01

Australia; VIC; WA

Our anti-depressants are contaminating the water and affecting our fishy friends, according to Aussie researchers. The researchers spent two years exposing generations of guppies to fluoxetine (Prozac) in levels they described as “realistic” (or similar to what they would be exposed to in the real world). They found that, even at low concentrations, anti-depressant pollution reduced the range of behaviours in fish to less than half of that in unexposed populations. Variety is important in the animal kingdom because it helps populations become more resistant to change, so researchers say this reduction in behaviour variation will reduce the ability of populations to survive in an ever-changing world.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Psychoactive pollution suppresses individual differences in fish behaviour
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Contamination of the environment by pharmaceuticals poses a serious threat to wildlife and human health. We exposed fish populations over multiple generations to realistic levels of fluoxetine (Prozac), globally one of the most widely prescribed psychotherapeutic drugs, and a common environmental contaminant of surface waters around the world. We show that fluoxetine, even at very low concentrations, compromises resilience in fish populations by dramatically reducing differences in behaviour between individuals: the contaminant makes animals behave similarly to one another, reducing the ability of populations to survive in a changing world.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research The Royal Society, Web page The URL will go live after the embargo ends.

Journal/
conference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Monash University, The University of Western Australia

Funder: This work was supported by the Australian Research Council (DP130100385, DP160100372 and FT190100014 to B.B.M.W.), the Forrest Research Foundation (to G.P. and V.R.S), a University of Western Australia Fellowship Support grant no. (12104502 to G.P.), an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship (to J.M.M.) and a Monash University Postgraduate Publications Award and a Kempe Foundations Research Grant (SMK-1954 to M.G.B.).

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.