Pharmaceuticals are widespread contaminants across the aquatic systems and despite the role that these compounds play in society today, little is known about their effects in aquatic organisms once they are released into the environment. This study aims to provide quantitative insight on the effects of antidepressants on the reproduction of fish and crustaceans with a multilevel meta-analysis. A systematic literature search identified 19 studies investigating effects of antidepressant exposure in fish or crustaceans’ reproduction, according to specific selection criteria. Heterogeneity analysis was performed and the moderating effect of the range of exposure concentrations, exposure time, organism group and toxicant was tested. Additionally, publication bias was also addressed. The results showed that, overall, there is no significant association between antidepressant exposure and the reproduction of fish and crustaceans, however, moderator analysis revealed that the range of concentrations is a significant moderator for fish and crustacean fecundity, showing contrary results between the two groups. Antidepressant concentration had a small, yet positive effect on fish fecundity, meaning that increased concentrations resulted in increased fish fecundity, whilst a negative effect on crustaceans’ fecundity was apparent with increasing concentrations. This difference could be related to data artifacts, or, more likely, evidencing a hormetic dose-response curve, with different ranges of exposure concentrations considered in studies on fish and crustaceans. Antidepressants have shown effects on reproductive outcomes in aquatic organisms, based on individual studies and narrative reviews. However, our results show that other factors can have an important role. Additionally, data available for a quantitative assessment is scarce, focusing mainly on a few freshwater species, low concentration ranges and one SSRI compound, fluoxetine. Thus, more research on the subject is needed since meta-analysis are only as statistically powerful as the number of, good quality, studies they include.

药物是整个水生系统中广泛的污染物，尽管这些化合物在当今社会中发挥着重要作用，但一旦将其释放到环境中，对它们对水生生物的影响知之甚少。这项研究旨在通过多层次的荟萃分析，提供有关抗抑郁药对鱼类和甲壳类动物繁殖的影响的定量见解。通过系统的文献检索，确定了19项研究，根据特定的选择标准，研究了抗抑郁药暴露对鱼类或甲壳类动物繁殖的影响。进行了异质性分析，并测试了暴露浓度，暴露时间，生物群和毒物范围的调节作用。此外，还解决了出版偏见。结果表明，总体而言，抗抑郁药的暴露与鱼类和甲壳类动物的繁殖之间没有显着关联，但是，主持人分析显示，浓度范围是鱼类和甲壳类繁殖力的重要主持人，两组之间的结果相反。抗抑郁药浓度对鱼的繁殖力影响较小，但有积极作用，这意味着增加浓度会导致鱼的繁殖力增加，而浓度升高对甲壳动物的繁殖力会产生不利影响。这种差异可能与数据伪像有关，或更可能是证明有毒的剂量反应曲线，并且在鱼类和甲壳类动物的研究中考虑了不同的暴露浓度范围。抗抑郁药已显示出对水生生物生殖结果的影响，基于个人研究和叙述性评论。但是，我们的结果表明，其他因素也可能起重要作用。此外，可用于定量评估的数据很少，主要集中在少数淡水物种，低浓度范围和一种SSRI化合物氟西汀。因此，由于荟萃分析在统计学上仅与其所包括的研究的质量一样强，因此需要对该主题进行更多的研究。