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Emerging Environmental Toxicants Undermine Reproductive Success in Aquatic Animals: A Narrative Review
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This review pulls together existing studies showing that everyday pollutants like microplastics, "forever chemicals" (PFAS), and hormone-disrupting chemicals are harming fish and other aquatic animals' ability to reproduce and raise healthy offspring. These chemicals mess with hormones, cause cell damage, and can even alter how genes are expressed—effects that could shrink wild fish populations over time. Since these same chemical families show up in our water, food, and bodies, this research is an early warning sign worth watching, even though scientists still need more real-world (not just lab) data to know exactly how much risk they pose to humans
Aquatic animals are increasingly exposed to complex mixtures of emerging environmental toxicants, including microplastics, nanoplastics, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). This raises serious concerns for reproductive health, offspring survival rates, and long-term population stability. This narrative review synthesizes the available peer-reviewed evidence on the reproductive and developmental effects of these contaminant groups in aquatic animals. Growing evidence indicates that these contaminants adversely affect reproductive processes, impair offspring development, and reduce survival and fitness across a wide range of aquatic species. Their effects are mediated through interconnected pathways involving oxidative stress, endocrine disruption, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and epigenetic alterations, ultimately leading to reproductive and developmental abnormalities. These changes may weaken wild fish populations, reduce aquaculture productivity, and compromise aquatic biodiversity. However, interpretation of the available evidence is constrained by substantial heterogeneity in species, contaminant properties and concentrations, exposure durations, and reproductive endpoints, together with the predominance of laboratory-based single-contaminant studies. This review integrates current knowledge on the reproductive and developmental impacts of emerging contaminants by connecting mechanistic toxicity pathways with population-level and ecosystem consequences. Overall, this review emphasizes that protecting aquatic reproductive health requires an integrated framework linking contaminant monitoring, mechanistic biomarkers, reproductive performance, and ecosystem-level risk assessment.
More Papers Like This
Occurrence and Environmental Risks of Organic Pollutants in Aquatic Environment
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This review pulls together research on chemical pollutants — including microplastics, "forever chemicals" (PFASs), pesticides, and flame retardants — that are building up in our rivers, lakes, and oceans, often causing nerve damage, immune problems, and cellular stress in fish and other aquatic life. The bigger concern: these pollutants rarely appear alone, so scientists are pushing for better testing that looks at how chemical mixtures accumulate in tissue over time, not just how much is in the water — a shift that could lead to smarter safety standards protecting both ecosystems and the people who rely on them for food and water.
Poly- and Perfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS): Do They Matter to Aquatic Ecosystems?
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This review examines PFAS, the persistent 'forever chemicals' widely used in consumer products, and their growing threat to aquatic ecosystems. Evidence indicates that PFAS accumulate in aquatic organisms, disrupt hormones, and can alter how other pollutants behave in the environment. The research is relevant to microplastic concerns because PFAS are commonly found in plastic products and can leach from microplastics into water.
Do Perfluorinated Chemicals Enhance the Toxicity of Other Contaminants in Aquatic Organisms?
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This review of existing research found that PFAS chemicals (commonly called "forever chemicals" found in non-stick cookware and food packaging) make other pollutants like pesticides, metals, and microplastics more harmful to fish and other water animals. When these chemicals mix together in the environment, they cause worse health problems than each pollutant would cause alone, including damage to development, reproduction, and body functions. This matters because humans are also exposed to these same chemical mixtures through contaminated water and food, suggesting we could face similar increased health risks.
The Effects of Micro & Nano Pollution on Fish Reproduction
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This review summarizes how micro- and nano-sized pollutants — including microplastics — enter fish through food, respiration, and direct contact, disrupting reproductive success and causing developmental abnormalities in offspring. The cumulative harm to fish reproduction poses a long-term threat to aquatic population viability, with potential cascading effects up the food chain to humans.
Toxicological implications of emerging pollutants on aquatic organisms
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Researchers reviewed how a broad range of emerging pollutants — including microplastics, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and heavy metals — harm aquatic organisms like fish, amphibians, and molluscs. Evidence shows these pollutants trigger oxidative stress, disrupt hormones, impair reproduction, and reduce biodiversity, with the review calling for stronger regulations, better wastewater treatment, and more research on the combined effects of multiple pollutants.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.