engleski

The impacts of increased temperature and pollution on the biological functions of two caddisfly species

Climate change alters surface water temperature patterns and often coincides with chemical pollution from various sources. Such a combination of stressors can impact aquatic organisms, including freshwater insects that perform important ecological functions in both freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. To identify potential impacts of individual stressors and their combination on insects' behaviour, growth, and mortality, larvae of Drusus croaticus and Allogamus uncatus were exposed to: i) a cocktail of emerging contaminants in environmentally relevant concentrations, ii) elevated temperature, or iii) their combination for 21 days. Results suggest two species of caddisflies showed differences in behavioural patterns between sampling days 7 and 21 of the experiment. While the locomotor activity of D. croaticus larvae was increased on day 7 in exposure to contaminants and in elevated temperature treatments, on day 21 their locomotor activity was unaltered compared to controls. Larvae of A. uncatus showed unaltered locomotor activity on day 7 in all three treatments, but on day 21 in elevated temperature and multi-stress treatments, their locomotor activity was decreased. Further, D. croaticus larvae exposed to a cocktail of contaminants showed a significant increase in weight during the experiment. Larvae of D. croaticus exposed to elevated temperature suffered the highest mortality, while the mortality of A. uncatus was similar in all treatments. Based on the results of locomotor activity analyses, we concluded that individual stressors and their combination may contribute to a disruption of natural behaviour, which could potentially lead to higher susceptibility of caddisflies to predation.

Trichoptera ; Multiple stressors

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