GABAergic anxiolytic drug in water increases migration behaviour in salmon

Gustav Hellström (), Jonatan Klaminder, Fia Finn, Lo Persson, Anders Alanärä, Micael Jonsson, Jerker Fick and Tomas Brodin
Additional contact information
Gustav Hellström: Umeå University
Jonatan Klaminder: Umeå University
Fia Finn: Umeå University
Lo Persson: Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Anders Alanärä: Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Micael Jonsson: Umeå University
Jerker Fick: Umeå University
Tomas Brodin: Umeå University

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Migration is an important life-history event in a wide range of taxa, yet many migrations are influenced by anthropogenic change. Although migration dynamics are extensively studied, the potential effects of environmental contaminants on migratory physiology are poorly understood. In this study we show that an anxiolytic drug in water can promote downward migratory behaviour of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in both laboratory setting and in a natural river tributary. Exposing salmon smolt to a dilute concentration of a GABAA receptor agonist (oxazepam) increased migration intensity compared with untreated smolt. These results implicate that salmon migration may be affected by human-induced changes in water chemical properties, such as acidification and pharmaceutical residues in wastewater effluent, via alterations in the GABAA receptor function.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13460 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms13460

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13460

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().