Environmental impacts of artificial lighting – academic research 2015-2019
The academic research focus internationally on the profound environmental impacts of artificial lighting has intensified significantly over the past five years, as highlighted in this brief synopsis of some of the key themes and findings:
“Artificial nighttime lighting has a pervasive and marked impact on ecological systems... including flora and fauna... and therefore is of significant concern... and of primary importance to understanding the biological impacts of anthropogenic pressures". "Impacts of Artificial Light on Biological Timings", Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution & Systematics, Vol. 48:49-68, 2017
"Artificial lighting is one of the fastest growing types of environmental pollution...and has been identified as a key threat to biodiversity...indeed, this 5-year study of two wild Australian marsupial mammals highlights a previously unappreciated relationship linking artificial light at night with induced changes in mammalian reproductive physiology...urban light pollution could have profound impacts on desynchronizing seasonal physiological processes in wildlife". "Artificial light at night desynchronizes reproduction in a wild mammal", Proceedings of the Royal Society, 2015
"Environmentally, LED lights are worse than traditional narrow-spectrum lights as they emit across the whole spectrum, with a peak in the blue region – the most wildlife unfriendly light of all". "There goes the night", Knowledgeable Annual Reviews, 2019 Annual Reviews
"LEDs may be having a great impact on the health of Australian wildlife... as they are a potent suppressor of nocturnal melatonin... including on wallabies, with antioxidant capacity declining under all treatment experimentation". Artificial light pollution: Shifting spectral wavelengths to mitigate impacts on nocturnal marsupial mammals", Journal of Ecological & Integrative Physiology, Vol. 329:8, 2018
"Light pollution at sports fields/stadiums may homogenize urban bat diversity by favoring selected urban exploiters at the expense of bats favoring darkness". "Light pollution at stadiums favors urban exploiters", Animal Conservation, Vol. 19:2, 2015
"Access to bat feeding habitats may be undermined by lighting within the surrounding landscape... consequently, accepting lower thresholds of lighting for impacts on [animal] movement may be more appropriate for conservation purposes", "Ecological impacts of city lighting: exploring gap thresholds for urban bats", Global Change Biology, Vol. 21:7, 2015
"Rainbow lorikeets have successfully adapted to urban environments...often forming noisy communal roosts that may damage infrastructure...this study of the roosting preferences of rainbow lorikeets in Sydney found roosting trees were often in areas of high anthropogenic disturbance and close to streetlights". "Rules of the roost: characteristics of nocturnal communal roosts of rainbow lorikeets in an urban environment", Urban Ecosystems, Vol. 18@, 2015
"Novel solutions need to be developed to lessen the impact of light and noise on patches of native vegetation retained in urban areas for conservation purposes". "The influence of urban encroachment on squirrel gliders: effects of road density, light & noise pollution", Wildlife Research, Vol. 42:4, 2015