Effects of florfenicol and oxytetracycline on the tropical cladoceran Ceriodaphnia silvestrii: A mixture toxicity approach to predict the potential risks of antimicrobials for zooplankton

Antimicrobials are commonly used in aquaculture to treat infectious diseases in fish. The overuse of these chemicals, however, has made them a contamination source for the aquatic environments. In this study, single and combined effects of florfenicol (FLO) and oxytetracycline (OTC), two antimicrobials widely used in the fish farming, were evaluated in acute and chronic toxicity tests using the tropical cladoceran Ceriodaphnia silvestrii as a model species. Also, a preliminary risk characterization of FLO and OTC for zooplankton was carried out, taking into account different exposure scenarios. The results obtained revealed that FLO and OTC have adverse effects on the mobility, reproduction and population growth rate of C. silvestrii in single exposures. In addition, mixture effects on the C. silvestrii were more severe than predicted effects based on the Concentration Addition model, showing a synergistic deviation for the mobility and a dose-level dependent deviation for the reproduction (synergism at higher levels than EC60). In relation to the risk characterization, risk quotients (RQs) exceeded 1 for chronic toxicity data obtained in both OTC and mixture exposures, indicating that the concentrations of these chemicals in Brazilian freshwater bodies could potentially present risks for the reproduction of zooplankton species in tropical regions. The RQs obtained for the mixtures were higher than those obtained for each chemical separately. Therefore, it is highly recommended that RQs are derived from single and mixture exposure data in order to obtain a more accurate risk characterization.