THE IMPACT OF INSECTICIDES AND HERBICIDES ON THE BIODIVERSITY AND PRODUCTIVITY OF AQUATIC COMMUNITIES

Pesticides constitute a major anthropogenic addition to natural communities. In aquatic communities, a great majority of pesticide impacts are determined from single‐species experiments conducted under laboratory conditions. Although this is an essential protocol to rapidly identify the direct impacts of pesticides on organisms, it prevents an assessment of direct and indirect pesticide effects on organisms embedded in their natural ecological contexts. In this study, I examined the impact of four globally common pesticides (two insecticides, carbaryl [Sevin] and malathion; two herbicides, glyphosate [Roundup] and 2,4‐D) on the biodiversity of aquatic communities containing algae and 25 species of animals.…

• NS
  National Science Foundation