There is also a drug called oxazepam. Perch exposed to both low and high levels of oxazepam swam more, spent more time by themselves and ate a meal of zooplankton faster than unexposed fish. At a high dose, fish became more adventurous, entering a new tank more quickly than unexposed fish. Fish that are more solitary, are probably easy for predators to catch. And fish foraging at high rates may take meals away from other animals, altering the ecosystem.
This relates to biology class because we learned about bio-magnification and this is an example of it. The drug gets passed on and increases with each level it goes through. This also relates to Biology because we learned all about food webs and food chains and how one little thing can throw the whole food chain out of balance. The over eating affect will make big fish like bass eat a lot more little fish, causing the littler fish population to decrease.
What we can do to make sure this doesn't happen is we can try to decrease this is we can try to not flush pills down the toilet because when people do that they don't realize where the pills go. We could also make it so the sewage water doesn't go near the water where fish swim. This would separate the water with drugs and harmful chemicals from the water where fish can swim. So you have to be thinking this because soon it will matter and the aquatic food chain will be changing rapidly because of this. And that soon might not be to soon at all.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348290/description/Antianxiety_drugs_affect_fish_too#sthash.9MnIFqsk.dpuf
Kenny,
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a really good article. People don't realize that when they get rid of things, whether trash or sewage, affects other organisms. I think to help this problem, people should take their drugs back to the pharmacy to dispose of them. If I were you, though, I might put how the fish come into contact with the drugs a little earlier in the article. Overall, great job!