Artificial light as a driver of nighttime landscape ecology

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Artificial light, from streetlights and other sources, is eroding natural light cycles over large areas of the globe; more than 80% of people now live under light polluted skies. Artificial light is thus giving rise to an environmental pressure on organisms that they have not previously encountered in their evolutionary histories. Documented impacts include effects on the physiology and behaviour of individual organisms, the abundance and distribution of species, and the structure and functioning of ecological communities. However, the exposure of organisms to artificial light in real landscapes, and thus the spatial extent and temporal dynamics of these effects, remain poorly understood. In major part this is because there is a substantial mismatch between the relatively coarse spatial and temporal scales at which artificial light has to date typically been mapped (often using satellites) and the relatively fine spatial and temporal scales at which organisms will often experience artificial nighttime lighting. This lack of detail constrains understanding of how animals move within, and respond to, dynamic lightscapes. In this project we will address this important limitation. We will measure the spatial and temporal distributions of artificial nighttime lighting across urban and suburban sites, and use these data to build generalisable models of their light dynamics. We will then produce high resolution maps that more accurately represent the ecological barriers, fragmentation and patch structure of light in urban and suburban areas and test these with new ecological data on the movements of hedgehogs, bats and moths. Only once ecological risks of artificial light at night have been understood at relevant spatial and temporal scales can better mitigation strategies be implemented to alleviate pressure from this pernicious driver of global change.