A team of scientists from the University of Portsmouth have developed new scientific tests to better understand the effects of pollution on wildlife behaviour.
A team of scientists from the University of Portsmouth have developed new scientific tests to better understand the effects of pollution on wildlife behaviour.
The field of behavioural toxicology is gaining traction within the environmental sciences with an increasing number of studies demonstrating that chemical exposure can alter animal behaviour.
An organism’s behaviour is fundamentally important to their survival through feeding, finding mates and escaping predators. Any chemical which could interfere with these responses has the potential to impact the food chain.
Using small shrimp-like crustaceans called amphipods, which are commonly used to monitor environmental toxicology, a team led by Professor Alex Ford and PhD student Shanelle Kohler, have been designing experiments to best answer these questions. In previously determining that these animals prefer to swim away from the light (negative phototaxis) and preferably be touching the sides of the tanks (positive thigmotaxis) they first set about asking whether these preferences could be altered by the size and shape of their testing tanks.
Read more at University of Portsmouth
Image: An adult male amphipod Echinogammarus marinus. (Credit: University of Portsmouth)
