Investigation on the mancozeb toxicity in adult zebrafish (Danio rerio)

ABSTRACT

Agriculture has gained increasing importance in response to the continuous growth of the world population and constant need for food. To avoid production losses, farmers commonly use pesticides. Mancozeb is a fungicide used in agriculture as this compound is effective in combating fungi that harm crops. However, this fungicide may also produce damage to non-target organisms present in soil and water. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence of exposure to mancozeb on survival rate, locomotor activity, behavior, and oxidative status utilizing adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model following exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of this pesticide. The experimental groups were negative control, positive control, and mancozeb (0.3; 1.02; 3.47; 11.8 or 40 μg/L). Zebrafish were exposed to the respective treatments for 96 hr. Exposure to mancozeb did not markedly alter survival rate and oxidative status of Danio rerio. At a concentration of 11.8 μg/L, the fungicide initiated changes in locomotor pattern of the animals. The results obtained suggest that the presence of mancozeb in the environment might produce locomotor alterations in adult zebrafish, which subsequently disrupt the animals’ innate defense mechanisms. In nature, this effect attributed to mancozeb on non-target organisms might result in adverse population impacts and ecological imbalance.

KEYWORDS:

• Oxidative status
• locomotion
• mancozeb
• zebrafish, survival rate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Declaration

The illustration in Figure 1 was created using the BioRender software, ©biorender.com.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15287394.2024.2352787.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financed by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico [CNPq, proc. 310989/2021-3]; [CNPq, proc. 402097/2023-8]; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES); Secretaria de Educação do Estado de Santa Catarina (Programa de Bolsas Universitárias de Santa Catarina – Uniedu); and Universidade Comunitária da Região de Chapecó (Unochapecó).