Can pollution alter wildlife behaviour?

Can pollution alter wildlife behaviour?

5 years ago
Anonymous $dicfOfy7s2

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-pollution-wildlife-behaviour.html

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 Ph.D. 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.