Garrett, J. K., Donald, P. F., & Gaston, K. J. (2019). Skyglow extends into the world’s Key Biodiversity Areas. Animal Conservation, .
Abstract: The proportion of the Earth’s surface that experiences a naturally dark environment at night is rapidly declining with the introduction of artificial light. Biological impacts of this change have been documented from genes to ecosystems, and for a wide diversity of environments and organisms. The likely severity of these impacts depends heavily on the relationship between the distribution of artificial night-time lighting and biodiversity. Here, we carry out a global assessment of the overlap between areas of conservation priority and the most recent atlas of artificial skyglow. We show that of the world’s Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs), less than a third have completely pristine night-time skies, about a half lie entirely under artificially bright skies and only about a fifth contain no area in which night-time skies are not polluted to the zenith. The extent of light pollution of KBAs varies by region, affecting the greatest proportion of KBAs in Europe and the Middle East. Statistical modelling revealed associations between light pollution within KBAs and associated levels of both gross domestic product and human population density. This suggests that these patterns will worsen with continued economic development and growth in the human population
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Navas Gonzalez, F. J., Jordana Vidal, J., Pizarro Inostroza, G., Arando Arbulu, A., & Delgado Bermejo, J. V. (2018). Can Donkey Behavior and Cognition Be Used to Trace Back, Explain, or Forecast Moon Cycle and Weather Events? Animals (Basel), 8(11).
Abstract: Donkeys have been reported to be highly sensitive to environmental changes. Their 8900-8400-year-old evolution process made them interact with diverse environmental situations that were very distant from their harsh origins. These changing situations not only affect donkeys' short-term behavior but may also determine their long-term cognitive skills from birth. Thus, animal behavior becomes a useful tool to obtain past, present or predict information from the environmental situation of a particular area. We performed an operant conditioning test on 300 donkeys to assess their response type, mood, response intensity, and learning capabilities, while we simultaneously registered 14 categorical environmental factors. We quantified the effect power of such environmental factors on donkey behavior and cognition. We used principal component analysis (CATPCA) to reduce the number of factors affecting each behavioral variable and built categorical regression (CATREG) equations to model for the effects of potential factor combinations. Effect power ranged from 7.9% for the birth season on learning (p < 0.05) to 38.8% for birth moon phase on mood (p < 0.001). CATPCA suggests the percentage of variance explained by a four-dimension-model (comprising the dimensions of response type, mood, response intensity and learning capabilities), is 75.9%. CATREG suggests environmental predictors explain 28.8% of the variability of response type, 37.0% of mood, and 37.5% of response intensity, and learning capabilities.
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Houpt, K. A., Erb, H. N., & Coria-Avila, G. A. (2019). The Sleep of Shelter Dogs Was Not Disrupted by Overnight Light Rather than Darkness in a Crossover Trial. Animals (Basel), 9(10).
Abstract: Dogs in shelters may be unattended at night. The purpose of this study is to describe the night-time behavior of dogs in a shelter and to determine if artificial light affected their sleeping patterns. Ten dogs were video-recorded under both light and dark conditions and their behavior recorded using focal animal sampling. The dogs were lying down 649 +/- 40 min (mean +/- SD) in the light condition and 629 +/- 58 min in the dark condition each night. They awoke, stood up, turned around and then lay down again every 48 to 50 min. There was no significant difference in time spent lying between the two conditions (p > 0.05). Light did not seem to affect their behavior. The conclusion is that dogs in shelters may sleep in the absence of people and that light does not disrupt their sleep patterns.
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Adams, J. (1924). Duration of Light and Growth. Annals of Botany, 38(151), 509–523.
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Adams, J. (1923). The Effect on Certain Plants of altering the Daily Period of Light. Annals of Botany, 37(145), 75–94.
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