Prescribed aggression of fishes: Pharmaceuticals modify aggression in environmentally relevant concentrations

Predicting the impacts of chemical pollutants on animal groups

“…Pollutants stemming from human pharmaceutical medications, for instance, can alter wildlife behaviours, such as activity [30,31], risk-taking [30,32], and aggression [33,34], because these drugs target receptors that have been shown to be evolutionarily conserved across much of the animal kingdom [35].…”

“…Collective behaviour often relies on information transfer among individuals, which is influenced by the group's social network. Chemically induced aggression can lead to increased conflict among individuals (e.g., [34]), potentially leading to weaker affiliative connections and a disconnected social network [66]. By contrast, if contaminants act to either directly or indirectly increase an individual's social tendencies and increase social affiliations, network density and information transfer may increase [67].…”

Identifying knowledge gaps in understanding the effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) on fish behaviour

“…Short-term exposure to sertraline and citalopram seems to consistently result in a reduction of feeding behaviour in different fish species ( Hedgespeth et al, 2014 ; Kellner et al, 2015 ; Hubena et al, 2021 ). A decrease in locomotor activity along with alterations in aggressiveness after 7–30 days of exposure to a wide range of citalopram and sertraline concentrations [0.38–100 μg/L] have also been reported ( Yang et al, 2021 ; Kellner and Olsén, 2020 ; Hubena et al, 2021 ; Kania and Wrońska, 2015 ) in different fish species. As for fluoxetine, these findings require further studies for their validation, as different sensitivity between species has been reported, along with a significant variation in exposure conditions.…”

Personality Affects Zebrafish Response to Sertraline

“…The widespread contamination of surface waters with pharmaceuticals poses serious risks to ecological and human health. Pharmaceutical pollution has been linked to many issues including endocrine disruption, reproductive disorders, abnormal behavior, and antimicrobial resistance (Hamid et al, 2022; Hossain et al, 2021; Hubená et al, 2021; Mutuku et al, 2022). The constant release of pharmaceuticals means that biota can be exposed over their entire life cycle and through multiple generations, leading to long‐term changes in populations (Lagesson et al, 2019; Omar et al, 2019).…”