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Contaminants disrupt aquatic food webs via decreased consumer efficiency
Summary
Meta-analysis found that aquatic contaminants -- including microplastics, heavy metals, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals -- generally decreased consumption rates across food webs, likely by reducing consumer mobility and search efficiency. These effects were strongest in freshwater systems, for consumers with sedentary prey, and at lower trophic levels, suggesting dampened energy flow toward larger ecologically and economically important species.
Changes in consumer-resource dynamics due to environmental stressors can alter energy flows or key interactions within food webs, with potential for cascading effects at population, community, and ecosystem levels. We conducted a meta-analysis to quantify the direction and magnitude of changes in consumption rates following exposure of consumer-resource pairs within freshwater-brackish and marine systems to anthropogenic CO, heavy metals, microplastics, oil, pesticides, or pharmaceuticals. Across all contaminants, exposure generally decreased consumption rates, likely due to reduced consumer mobility or search efficiency. These negative effects on consumers appeared to outweigh co-occurring reductions in prey vigilance or antipredator behaviors following contaminant exposure. Consumption was particularly dampened in freshwater-brackish systems, for consumers with sedentary prey, and for lower-trophic-level consumers. This synthesis indicates that energy flow up the food web, toward larger - often ecologically and economically prized - taxa may be dampened as aquatic contaminant loads increase.