Adaptive foraging fosters food web stability in environments disturbed by bioaccumulative pollutants

Chemical pollution poses a significant threat to aquatic ecosystems by affecting species abundance and destabilising community structure. Pollutants with bioaccumulative properties are transferred through food webs, influencing species across trophic levels and potentially disrupting ecological stability. Whilst the deleterious effects of pollution are well-recognised, the mechanisms by which adaptive foraging may interact with pollutant exposure to mitigate these impacts at the food web scale remain unclear. The present study employs a multi-species mathematical model to evaluate the efficacy of consumers' adaptive foraging behaviour in maintaining species persistence and biodiversity within food webs of varying structural complexity exposed to a bioaccumulative pollutant. The hypothesis that adaptive foraging can alleviate the negative effects of pollutants was investigated. The results of the study demonstrated that adaptive foraging enables consumers to avoid highly contaminated preys, thereby enhancing community stability. Moreover, adaptive behaviour fosters the persistence of extensive and intricate food webs, even in the presence of pollutants. The findings of the present study offer novel insights into the dynamic interplay between chemical disturbance and behavioural adaptation, thus underscoring the potential of adaptive foraging as a stabilising mechanism in ecotoxicological contexts.