Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Social information transfer enables rapid responses to threats and underpins collective predator avoidance across taxa. Yet whether the growing threat of environmental pollutants, such as pharmaceuticals, disrupt this process remains unknown. Here, we show that the widespread antidepressant pollutant amitriptyline disrupts fear contagion—the automatic matching of an individual’s behavioural state to that of a frightened conspecific—in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata). Amitriptyline exposure impaired the translation of socially acquired threat information into behavioural responses and weakened behavioural coupling with distressed conspecifics, while responses to directly detected threats remained unaffected. These findings provide empirical evidence that pollution can degrade the dynamics of fear contagion—a fundamental mechanism underpinning rapid, socially mediated responses to predation risk. By eroding the integrity of social information networks, psychoactive contaminants may compromise coordinated antipredator behaviour and reshape predator–prey dynamics in polluted ecosystems, revealing a previously unrecognised dimension of ecotoxicological risk.
DOI: 10.32942/x2k408
Language: English
Subfield: Pollution
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment, Ecological Society of America, Australian Government, Kempe Foundation, Deakin University, Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas, Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse, Vetenskapsrådet, Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet, Kempestiftelserna, Ecological Society of Australia, Stiftelsen Åforsk, Australian Research Council
Awards: Antibiotic rivers: impacts of antibiotic exposure on the gut microbiome of fish and consequence for health, behaviour, and cognition, G2777400950, G2866140521, G3239649357, G3701355015, G429563406, G4816769531, G481973122, G4878542527, Mind bender: how neuroactive drug pollution impacts wildlife cognition, Endocrine disruption in wildlife: a sexual selection perspective , Antibiotic rivers: impacts of antibiotic exposure on the gut microbiome of fish and consequence for health, behaviour, and cognition, G5957953577, Brain teaser: are impacts of pharmaceutical pollution on wildlife mediated by brain size?, G6369846310, G6477687251, Multilevel analysis of the evolutionary link between variation in animal behavior and brain anatomy, Consequences of selection for cognitive ability, G8217905538, G8545939451
OpenAlex ID: W7208786034