A study recently conducted in Sweden, shows that European Perch are affected by the drug oxazepam which is an antianxiety drug used by humans. They put fish into 3 tanks, one tank had no oxazepam, another tank had very little oxazepam, and the last tank had a lot of oxazepam. Their results showed that the Perch that were exposed to oxazepam spent more time alone and gobbled up a meal of zooplankton faster than an unexposed fish. The fish at the highest concentration became more adventurous, entering a new tank more quickly than unexposed fish. Oxazepam can sometimes be found in rivers. This coulkd be having a negative effect on populations of these Perch because predators can more easily catch solitary fish then they can fish that are not solitary.
NOS Themes:
Science is Collaborative: The scientists from Sweden worked together to see the effect of the drug on the Perch.
Science is Based on Evidence: The scientists conducted an expierement to see the effects of the drug on the Perch.
By: Mitchell Gardner, Hour 1
This is interesting. I wonder why scientists tested this. I also wonder what would happen on a large scale like putting the drug in a lake.
ReplyDeleteIt probably isn't good for the fish to be exposed to oxazepam for the solitary reason, but also because if a fish is too adventurous it might start to disregard safety and go into places that have predators that it wouldn't have gone to if it was not exposed to the chemical. It might make the fish happier though, so maybe it would be nice for fish that lived in a tank to be exposed to small amounts of it, as they wouldn't have to worry about predators.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that they came up with the idea to test this. I wonder if the exposure to the drug has any negative effects on the fish. Maybe they could do a test on non drugged fish to drugged fish to see which ones live longer. It is fascinating how the fish were actually affected by the medication just like a human would be. A larger scale experiment with more fish and more water would be interesting to test too.
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