There is a need to develop bioassessment tools that can diagnose the effects of individual stressors that can have multiple ecological effects. Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics, our experiments aimed to identify the sensitivity of metabolites to changes in food availability and dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations, and compare these results to identify metabolites that may differentiate between the effects of these two stressors. Forty-eight, laboratory-raised, red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) were randomly assigned and exposed to one of three food availability or DO treatment levels (high, normal, low). Starved crayfish had lower amounts of amino acids than fed crayfish, suggesting catabolic effects of starvation on tail muscle tissue for energy requirements. In contrast, crayfish exposed to hypoxic conditions experienced changes in abundance of metabolites primarily associated with energy metabolism. Tail muscle was the only tissue sensitive to food and DO stress, suggesting the need to select tissues for monitoring appropriately. Our evaluation of environmental metabolomics as a tool for bioassessment indicates that several identified metabolites in crayfish tail muscle may be able to diagnose food and oxygen stress. Further study is required to determine if these metabolic effects are linked with changes of individual fitness and higher levels of biological organization, such as population size.
Keywords: Bioassessment; Crayfish; Dissolved oxygen; Eutrophication; Food availability; Metabolomics.