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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

A Fish-feeding Laboratory Bioassay to Assess the Antipredatory Activity of Secondary Metabolites from the Tissues of Marine Organisms
Published on: January 11, 2015
Inferring chemical effects on carbon flows in aquatic food webs: methodology and case study
Frederik De Laender1, K Soetaert, J J Middelburg
1NIOO-CEME, Netherland Institute of Ecology, Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology, Korringaweg 7, 4401 NT Yerseke, The Netherlands. f.delaender@nioo.knaw.nl
Abstract:
The majority of ecotoxicological enclosure experiments monitor species abundances at different chemical concentrations. Here, we present a new modelling approach that estimates changes in food web flows from such data and show that population- and food web level effects are revealed that are not apparent from abundance data alone. For the case of cypermethrin in freshwater enclosures, photosynthesis and excretion (d(-1)) of phytoplankton at 3.643 microg L(-1) cypermethrin were 30% lower and 100% higher than in the control, respectively. The ingestion rate of mesozooplankton (d(-1)) was 6 times higher in the treated enclosures than in the control as food concentration increased with insecticide exposure. With increasing cypermethrin concentrations, nanoflagellates progressively relied on phytoplankton as their main food source, which rendered the food web less stable. We conclude that this tool has excellent potential to analyse the wealth of enclosure data as it only needs species abundance and general constraints.
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