; bundschuh et al. 2013 ; kanu et al. 2022 ). therefore, to improve the extrapolation of laboratory results to natural ecosystems the inclusion of post-exposure periods in exper- imental setups is a relevant issue in ecotoxicology. among ecotoxicological endpoints, mortality is amply used in laboratory bioassays because its utility for sensitiv- ity comparison between species, and it is usually monitored at short-term and with low-cost. consequently, most of the data used for environmental risk assessment are based on lethal parameters (constable et al. 2003 ; romero-blanco and alonso ; wang et al. ). yet, other parameters, such as reproduction, development, and behavior present obvious advantages. for instance, behavioral bioassays are more sensitive and require lower toxicant concentrations than lethal bioassays (melvin and wilson ). in fact, behavioral changes are the first response to stress at indi- vidual scale (hellou 2011 ; melvin and wilson ; alonso 2021 ). therefore, behavior alteration is an early signal of toxicant exposure (hellou ). moreover, the recovery of previous behavior to toxicant exposure at the end of the post-exposure period may be a good indicator of animal recovery