Background In recent years, there are growing concerns about pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) in natural ecosystems. These compounds have been found in natural waters and in fish tissues worldwide. Regarding their growing distribution and abundance, it is becoming clear that traditionally used risk assessment methodologies and ecotoxicological studies have limitations in several respects. In our study a new, combined approach of environmental impact assesment of PhACs has been used. Methods In this study, the constant watercourses of the suburban region of the Hungarian capital (Budapest) were sampled, and the body shape and scale shape of three fish species (roach Rutilus rutilus, chub Squalius cephalus, gibel carp Carassius gibelio) found in these waters were analyzed, based on landmark-based geometric morphometric methods. Possible connections were made between the differences in body shape and scale shape, and abiotic environmental variables (local- and landscape-scale) and measured PhACs. Results Significant connections were found between shape and PhACs concentrations in several cases. Despite the relatively large number of compounds (54) detected, citalopram, propranolol, codeine and trimetazidine significantly affected only fish body and scale shape, based on their concentrations. These four PhACs were shown to be high (citalopram), medium (propranolol and codeine), and low (trimetazidine) risk levels during the environmental risk assessment, which were based on Risk Quotient calculation. Furthermore, seven PhACs (diclofenac, Estrone (E1), tramadol, caffeine 17α-Ethinylestradiol (EE2), 17α-Estradiol (aE2), Estriol (E3)) were also categorized with a high risk level. However, our morphological studies indicated that only citalopram was found to affect fish phenotype amongst the PhACs posing high risk. Therefore, our results revealed that the output of (traditional) environmental/ecological risk assessment based on ecotoxicological data of different aquatic organisms not necessarily show consistency with a “real-life” situation; furthermore, the morphological investigations may also be a good sub-lethal endpoint in ecotoxicological assessments.

Fish scale investigation has been used in many ways. Recently several species' scale shape was used to differentiate species, populations or stocks. Effects of allometric growth on scale shape proved to be a common phenomenon in case of numerous species, however there is no information regarding the impact of temporal (ontogenetic timescale) changes. In this study the effect of intrapopulation age distribution on the scale shape was tested. Seven age groups of a gibel carp (Carassius gibelio) population were identified and analyzed using landmark-based geometric morphometric methods. The results indicated a clear trend of ontogenetic-driven shape change of gibel carp scales: the adult fish specific scale shape occurs at the age of 3+, along with sexual maturation, the alterations among the older age classes show no significant differences. These results suggest that the asymmetric age distribution of fish populations should be taken into consideration during scale morphometric analyses.

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Cikkünkben az egyedi, kizárólag egy adott országban létrehozott védett természeti területi kategóriákat mutatjuk be. Ezek az 1900 és 2003 között alapított területek az IUCN-besoroláson is átestek, így teljesen hivatalosan létező kategóriák, melyek létrejötte a Föld országainak sokszínűségéből ered. Végigvesszük, hogy melyek ezek a kategóriák, hol találhatók, valamint azt is, hogy jogosultnak érezzük-e egy ilyen külön kategória létrehozását. Megvizsgáljuk az IUCN általi besorolás szerinti eloszlásukat, valamint területik nagyságát. Továbbá bemutatjuk azt is, hogy mikor és mely országokban jöttek létre ezek a kategóriák, melyből láthatjuk majd, hogy bár minden földrészen vannak egyedi besorolású területek, eloszlásuk korántsem egyforma. Végezetül kiválasztunk öt területet, melyek jellemzése képet adhat az osztályozások okairól.