Gaston, K. J., & Bennie, J. (2014). Demographic effects of artificial nighttime lighting on animal populations. In Environmental Reviews (Vol. 22, pp. 323–330). Canadian Science Publishing.
Abstract: Artificial lighting, especially but not exclusively through street lights, has transformed the nighttime environment in much of the world. Impacts have been identified across multiple levels of biological organization and process. The influences, however, on population dynamics, particularly through the combined effects on the key demographic rates (immigration, births, deaths, emigration) that determine where individual species occur and in what numbers, have not previously been well characterized. The majority of attention explicitly on demographic parameters to date has been placed on the attraction of organisms to lights, and thus effectively local immigration, the large numbers of individuals that can be involved, and then to some extent the mortality that can often result. Some of the most important influences of nighttime lighting, however, are likely more subtle and less immediately apparent to the human observer. Particularly significant are effects of nighttime lighting on demography that act through (i) circadian clocks and photoperiodism and thence on birth rates; (ii) time partitioning and thence on death rates; and (iii) immigration/emigration through constraining the movements of individuals amongst habitat networks, especially as a consequence of continuously lit linear features such as roads and footpaths. Good model organisms are required to enable the relative consequences of such effects to be effectively determined, and a wider consideration of the effects of artificial light at night is needed in demographic studies across a range of species.
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Spoelstra, K., van Grunsven, R. H. A., Donners, M., Gienapp, P., Huigens, M. E., Slaterus, R., et al. (2015). Experimental illumination of natural habitat—an experimental set-up to assess the direct and indirect ecological consequences of artificial light of different spectral composition. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci, 370, 20140129.
Abstract: Artificial night-time illumination of natural habitats has increased dramatically over the past few decades. Generally, studies that assess the impact of artificial light on various species in the wild make use of existing illumination and are therefore correlative. Moreover, studies mostly focus on short-term consequences at the individual level, rather than long-term consequences at the population and community level—thereby ignoring possible unknown cascading effects in ecosystems. The recent change to LED lighting has opened up the exciting possibility to use light with a custom spectral composition, thereby potentially reducing the negative impact of artificial light. We describe here a large-scale, ecosystem-wide study where we experimentally illuminate forest-edge habitat with different spectral composition, replicated eight times. Monitoring of species is being performed according to rigid protocols, in part using a citizen-science-based approach, and automated where possible. Simultaneously, we specifically look at alterations in behaviour, such as changes in activity, and daily and seasonal timing. In our set-up, we have so far observed that experimental lights facilitate foraging activity of pipistrelle bats, suppress activity of wood mice and have effects on birds at the community level, which vary with spectral composition. Thus far, we have not observed effects on moth populations, but these and many other effects may surface only after a longer period of time.
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van Langevelde, F., Ettema, J. A., Donners, M., WallisDeVries, M. F., & Groenendijk, D. (2011). Effect of spectral composition of artificial light on the attraction of moths. Biological Conservation, 144(9), 2274–2281.
Abstract: During the last decades, artificial night lighting has increased globally, which largely affected many plant and animal species. So far, current research highlights the importance of artificial light with smaller wavelengths in attracting moths, yet the effect of the spectral composition of artificial light on species richness and abundance of moths has not been studied systematically. Therefore, we tested the hypotheses that (1) higher species richness and higher abundances of moths are attracted to artificial light with smaller wavelengths than to light with larger wavelengths, and (2) this attraction is correlated with morphological characteristics of moths, especially their eye size. We indeed found higher species richness and abundances of moths in traps with lamps that emit light with smaller wavelengths. These lamps attracted moths with on average larger body mass, larger wing dimensions and larger eyes. Cascading effects on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, e.g. pollination, can be expected when larger moth species are attracted to these lights. Predatory species with a diet of mainly larger moth species and plant species pollinated by larger moth species might then decline. Moreover, our results indicate a size-bias in trapping moths, resulting in an overrepresentation of larger moth species in lamps with small wavelengths. Our study indicates the potential use of lamps with larger wavelengths to effectively reduce the negative effect of light pollution on moth population dynamics and communities where moths play an important role.
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