{"title":"Lighting trends reveal state of the dark sky cloak: light at night and its ecological impacts in Aotearoa New Zealand","authors":"E. Cieraad, Bridgette Farnworth","doi":"10.20417/nzjecol.47.3559","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":": Artificial light at night (ALAN) exposes many organisms to increased night-time radiance and disrupts natural cycles that have cued the physiology and ecology of plants and animals throughout their evolutionary history. Here, we use satellite data to quantify spatiotemporal trends of ALAN in Aotearoa New Zealand between 2012–2021 and review the literature of the ecological impacts of ALAN. Our results show that the night-time light environment is changing rapidly in Aotearoa New Zealand: while the vast majority (95.2%) of the country had no direct emissions of ALAN, the lit surface area increased by 37.4% (from 3.0% to 4.2%) between 2012 and 2021. A total of 4694 km 2 of the country experienced increased brightness (median increase of 87%) over the decade. In contrast, 886 km 2 became less bright (median decrease 33%), mainly in urban centres where absolute brightness remains high. Our estimated increases in ALAN extent and brightness are underestimates as satellite imagery does not capture sky glow, nor the full extent of the light spectrum emitted by increasingly common light emitting diodes. Impacts of ALAN on the flora and fauna of Aotearoa New Zealand were identified from 39 pieces of literature, with most focussing on behavioural responses in avifauna, mammals, and insects. ALAN is an understudied environmental pollutant, as > 31% of the records described general observations rather than experimental or observational studies and literature describing impacts on groups including herpetofauna and marine mammals was absent","PeriodicalId":49755,"journal":{"name":"New Zealand Journal of Ecology","volume":"20 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"New Zealand Journal of Ecology","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.20417/nzjecol.47.3559","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
: Artificial light at night (ALAN) exposes many organisms to increased night-time radiance and disrupts natural cycles that have cued the physiology and ecology of plants and animals throughout their evolutionary history. Here, we use satellite data to quantify spatiotemporal trends of ALAN in Aotearoa New Zealand between 2012–2021 and review the literature of the ecological impacts of ALAN. Our results show that the night-time light environment is changing rapidly in Aotearoa New Zealand: while the vast majority (95.2%) of the country had no direct emissions of ALAN, the lit surface area increased by 37.4% (from 3.0% to 4.2%) between 2012 and 2021. A total of 4694 km 2 of the country experienced increased brightness (median increase of 87%) over the decade. In contrast, 886 km 2 became less bright (median decrease 33%), mainly in urban centres where absolute brightness remains high. Our estimated increases in ALAN extent and brightness are underestimates as satellite imagery does not capture sky glow, nor the full extent of the light spectrum emitted by increasingly common light emitting diodes. Impacts of ALAN on the flora and fauna of Aotearoa New Zealand were identified from 39 pieces of literature, with most focussing on behavioural responses in avifauna, mammals, and insects. ALAN is an understudied environmental pollutant, as > 31% of the records described general observations rather than experimental or observational studies and literature describing impacts on groups including herpetofauna and marine mammals was absent
期刊介绍:
The New Zealand Journal of Ecology is a biannual peer-reviewed journal publishing ecological research relevant to New Zealand/Aotearoa and the South Pacific. It has been published since 1952 (as a 1952 issue of New Zealand Science Review and as the Proceedings of the New Zealand Ecological Society until 1977). The Journal is published by the New Zealand Ecological Society (Inc.), and is covered by Current Contents/Agriculture, Biology and Environmental Science, GEOBASE, and Geo Abstracts.