When The sun doesn’t shine, the lamps help us survive as long as we turn them off when we go to sleep.
But who would turn off the lights on the fish?
There is already a sea surface in the world that is almost six times the area of Finland, which is disturbed by artificial lights at night.
This is what the US researchers who wrote a summary of the field’s knowledge say For Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems.
Light pollution tcoastal cities in particular float, and ships and drilling rigs spread it to the lower shores. Bluish light penetrates the deepest, which has increased thanks to LED technology.
In shallow waters, such as coasts and coral reefs, artificial light can shine all the way to the bottom. For example, it mixes up the fish’s circadian rhythm and prevents day swimmers from resting properly at night. They get stressed, live more fervently and die faster.
Artificial light easily covers the light of the Moon. It can fool sea turtle hatchlings hatched on the beach to head inland instead of the sea.
Poorly also applies to breeding corals, which should keep track of the phases of the Moon so that they know how to release their gametes into the water at the same time.
The methods of predation also get mixed up when the night no longer shadows the lurker or the one hiding.
The reflected light scares, for example, the plankton animals of the ulapa, which meet under the cover of darkness to rise in huge flocks to the surface water to eat. Bright artificial light makes them stay at a depth of up to 80 meters.
The threats should be mapped more precisely, and after that light pollution-free areas should be established in the seas, the researchers suggest.
Published in Science in Nature 8/2023
#Ecology #Fish #stressed #light #pollution
