Artificial light as a driver of nighttime landscape ecology

来自路灯和其他光源的人造光正在侵蚀地球仪大部分地区的自然光循环;超过80%的人现在生活在光污染的天空下。因此，人造光对生物体产生了环境压力，这是它们在进化史上从未遇到过的。记录在案的影响包括对单个生物的生理和行为、物种的丰度和分布以及生态群落的结构和功能的影响。然而，在真实的景观中，生物体暴露于人造光，从而这些影响的空间范围和时间动态，仍然知之甚少。这在很大程度上是因为在相对粗糙的空间和时间尺度（人造光迄今为止通常被映射（通常使用卫星））与相对精细的空间和时间尺度（生物体将经常经历人造夜间照明）之间存在实质性的不匹配。这种细节的缺乏限制了对动物如何在动态光景中移动和响应的理解。在这个项目中，我们将解决这个重要的限制。我们将测量人造夜间照明在城市和郊区的空间和时间分布，并使用这些数据来构建其光动态的可推广模型。然后，我们将制作高分辨率的地图，更准确地代表城市和郊区的生态障碍，碎片和光的斑块结构，并测试这些与刺猬，蝙蝠和飞蛾的运动的新生态数据。只有在相关的空间和时间尺度上了解了夜间人造光的生态风险，才能实施更好的缓解战略，以减轻这种有害的全球变化驱动因素的压力。

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.