Combined effects of climate warming and pharmaceuticals on a tri-trophic freshwater food web

Multiple anthropogenic stressors influence the functioning of lakes and ponds, but their combined effects are often little understood. We conducted two mesocosm experiments to evaluate the effects of warming (+4 °C above ambient temperature) and environmentally relevant concentrations of a mixture of commonly used pharmaceuticals (cardiovascular, psychoactive, antihistamines, antibiotics) on tri-trophic food webs representative of communities in ponds and other small standing waters. Communities were constituted of phyto- and zooplankton and macroinvertebrates (molluscs and insects) including benthic detritivores, grazers, omnivorous scrapers, omnivorous piercers, water column predators, benthic predators, and phytophilous predators. We quantified the main and interactive effects of warming and pharmaceuticals on each trophic level in the pelagic community and attributed them to the direct effects of both stressors and the indirect effects arising through biotic interactions. Warming and pharmaceuticals had stronger effects in the summer experiment, altering zooplankton community composition and causing delayed or accelerated emergence of top insect predators (odonates). In the summer experiment, both stressors and top predators reduced the biomass of filter-feeding zooplankton (cladocerans), while warming and pharmaceuticals had opposite effects on phytoplankton. In the winter experiment, the effects were much weaker and were limited to a positive effect of warming on phytoplankton biomass. Overall, we show that pharmaceuticals can exacerbate the effects of climate warming in freshwater ecosystems, especially during the warm season. Our results demonstrate the utility of community-level studies across seasons for risk assessment of multiple emerging stressors in freshwater ecosystems.