Abstract
The assessment of pollution is a serious issue and a major consequence of the overgrowing human population and its activities. Focusing on the aquatic ecosystem, traditional approaches of water chemistry mainly provide minimal monitoring with the detection of pollutants, while they fail to produce mechanistic or predictive insight. As such, effect-based methods have gained significant attention for the better mechanistic understanding of aquatic pollution. Among the key species used, daphnids have acquired a central position in aquatic toxicology and ecology. In this study, a novel feeding assay was developed and applied in a battery of exposures to different pollutants. Furthermore, in combination with biochemical markers and sensitive metabolomic analyses, the responses of daphnids following exposures were uncovered in molecular detail. Specific categories of metabolites were identified as significant indicators to predict pollution.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, resources, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review and editing, supervision, funding acquisition, K.G.; investigation, data acquisition, E.R., A.L., M.G. and K.O. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This research was funded by SCIENCE FOUNDATION IRELAND under grant number (18/SIRG/5563 Metabolomic approaches in mechanistic toxicology) and the IRISH RESEARCH COUNCIL in support of Katie O’Rourke under grant number (GOIPG/2020/199 Integration of holistic approaches to detect pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment).
Institutional Review Board Statement
Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, due to the fact that daphnids are regarded as “animals” in terms of being members of the kingdom Animalia, however, they are not “animals” as defined in regulation SI543 of 2012 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. Therefore, the study does not require authorization from the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), while is also in line with the aim of working under the 3Rs (reduce, refine, replacement) strategy, since daphnids are commonly used in ecology and ecotoxicology as replacements of more evolutionary advanced species (i.e., fishes), posing no ethical implications.
Informed Consent Statement
Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement
Data sharing is not applicable to this abstract.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support from the Metabolomics Platform of the University College Dublin and the University of Heidelberg.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.
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