Night lighting was a great advance since electricity was discovered. More than 100 years later, today, light pollution is changing nocturnal ecosystems. It turns out to be a problem that they did not foresee. According to scientific reports, artificial lighting, with the arrival of LED light, is growing at a rate of 10% each year. This causes a disruption in the natural light cycles that have been constant since the birth of life on Earth.
Influence of light pollution on ecosystems
The German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig and the University of Jena conducted the research. This is a study based on how light pollution influences entire ecosystems, and not just human health or individual species, as investigated until now.
According to scientist Myriam Hirt, from the University of Jena, “species do not live in isolation, but rather interact in various ways.” The goal of the study is to understand how the brightness of the night sky affects entire ecosystems. For a better understanding, they created different types of ecosystems in a laboratory.
In one such trial, biologists showed that the effects of artificial light affect communities that thrive underground. Influencing the aeration of the substrates and the efficiency of carbon use.
They also demonstrated that artificial light influences the life of insects and, among other things, awakens a greater hunting habit in them. Likewise, lighting also modifies the behavior of plants and their characteristics, for example, the increased hairiness on their leaves. There are even species that change the color of their leaves, as happens with poinsettias, when they are exposed to hours of darkness, their leaves stop being green and turn red, which is precisely the greatest attraction of that plant.
Different species modify their habits due to nighttime luminosity
The nighttime luminosity causes the night sky to light up, especially in large urban centers. Scientists confirm that artificial light changes the habits of species and causes changes in their activity periods.
This can have an influence on the very existence of the species. According to the study, changing the activity of species that are diurnal or crepuscular to nocturnal can affect a species so much that it can lead to extinction.
In another part of the study, the researchers found that artificial lighting can also trigger a domino effect that also involves humans. An example of this may be its influence on the habits of mosquitoes.
These insects are nocturnal, searching for hosts to feed on, mating and during flight hours. The consequences of these behavioral changes can affect humans through the transmission of diseases such as malaria or dengue.
Although there is no immediate solution to this problem, one of them could be to lower the intensity in areas where lighting is not necessary.
