ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2014
Direct and indirect responses of a freshwater food web to a potent synthetic oestrogen.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 185 citations in OpenAlex.
- Environmentally Safe and Just Pharmacy: A Framework and Action Plan for Operating within the Earth System Boundary for Novel Entities.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- Pharmaceuticals and Microplastics in Aquatic Environments: A Comprehensive Review of Pathways and Distribution, Toxicological and Ecological Effects.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Review
- Independent and synergistic effects of microplastics and endocrine-disrupting chemicals on the reproductive social behavior of fathead minnows (Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Medicinal Products and Environmental Pollution.Pharmaceutical medicine · 2024Article
- Ponds as experimental arenas for studying animal movement: current research and future prospects.Movement ecology · 2023Review
- Factors Determining the Susceptibility of Fish to Effects of Human Pharmaceuticals.Environmental science & technology · 2023Review
- Article
- Multi-Level System to Assess Toxicity in Water Distribution Plants.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Simultaneous Quantification of Bisphenol-A and 4-Tert-Octylphenol in the Live Aquaculture FeedMethods and protocols · 2022Article
- Fluoxetine results in misleading conclusions on fish behavior.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Impacts of Oxazepam on Perch (Environmental science & technology · 2021Article
- Mixed organic and inorganic tapwater exposures and potential effects in greater Chicago area, USA.The Science of the total environment · 2020Article
- Effects of industrial pollution on the reproductive biology of Squalius laietanus (Actinopterygii, Cyprinidae) in a Mediterranean stream (NE Iberian Peninsula).Fish physiology and biochemistry · 2020Article
- Temperature and Estrogen Alter Predator-Prey Interactions between Fish Species.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2020Article
- Multi-region assessment of pharmaceutical exposures and predicted effects in USA wadeable urban-gradient streams.PloS one · 2020Article
- Low adaptive potential for tolerance to ethynylestradiol, but also low toxicity, in a grayling population (Thymallus thymallus).BMC evolutionary biology · 2019Article
- Urban Stormwater: An Overlooked Pathway of Extensive Mixed Contaminants to Surface and Groundwaters in the United States.Environmental science & technology · 2019Article
- Assessing predator-prey interactions in a chemically altered aquatic environment: the effects of DDT on Xenopus laevis and Culex sp. larvae interactions and behaviour.Ecotoxicology (London, England) · 2019Article
- Sex-specific changes in gene expression in response to estrogen pollution around the onset of sex differentiation in grayling (Salmonidae).BMC genomics · 2019Article
- Reconnaissance of Mixed Organic and Inorganic Chemicals in Private and Public Supply Tapwaters at Selected Residential and Workplace Sites in the United States.Environmental science & technology · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in municipal effluents directly affect the sexual development and reproductive success of fishes, but indirect effects on invertebrate prey or fish predators through reduced predation or prey availability, respectively, are unknown. At the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario, Canada, a long-term, whole-lake experiment was conducted using a before-after-control-impact design to determine both direct and indirect effects of the synthetic oestrogen used in the birth control pill, 17α-ethynyloestradiol (EE2). Algal, microbial, zooplankton and benthic invertebrate communities showed no declines in abundance during three summers of EE2 additions (5-6 ng l(-1)), indicating no direct toxic effects. Recruitment of fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas) failed, leading to a near-extirpation of this species both 2 years during (young-of-year, YOY) and 2 years following (adults and YOY) EE2 additions. Body condition of male lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) and male and female white sucker (Catostomus commersonii) declined before changes in prey abundance, suggesting direct effects of EE2 on this endpoint. Evidence of indirect effects of EE2 was also observed. Increases in zooplankton, Chaoborus, and emerging insects were observed after 2 or 3 years of EE2 additions, strongly suggesting indirect effects mediated through the reduced abundance of several small-bodied fishes. Biomass of top predator lake trout declined by 23-42% during and after EE2 additions, most probably an indirect effect from the loss of its prey species, the fathead minnow and slimy sculpin (Cottus cognatus). Our results demonstrate that small-scale studies focusing solely on direct effects are likely to underestimate the true environmental impacts of oestrogens in municipal wastewaters and provide further evidence of the value of whole-ecosystem experiments for understanding indirect effects of EDCs and other aquatic stressors.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.