Wavelength-dependent effects of artificial light at night on phytoplankton growth and community structure

Artificial light at night (ALAN) is a disruptive form of pollution, impacting physiological and behavioural processes that may scale up to population and community levels. Evidence from terrestrial habitats show that the severity and type of impact depend on the wavelength and intensity of ALAN; however, research on marine organisms is still limited. Here, we experimentally investigated the effect of different ALAN colours on marine primary producers. We tested the effect of green (525 nm), red (624 nm) and broad-spectrum white LED ALAN, compared to a dark control, on the green microalgae Tetraselmis suesica and a diatom assemblage. We show that green ALAN boosted chlorophyll production and abundance in T. suesica . All ALAN wavelengths affected assemblage biomass and diversity, with red and green ALAN having the strongest effects, leading to higher overall abundance and selective dominance of specific diatom species, some known to cause harmful algal blooms. Our findings show that green and red ALAN should be used with caution as alternative LED colours in coastal areas, where there might be a need to strike a balance between the effects of green and red light on marine primary producers with the benefit they appear to bring to other organisms.

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“…Data accessibility. Our data are available from the Dryad Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.vdncjsxtn [98].…”

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confidence: 99%

Wavelength-dependent effects of artificial light at night on phytoplankton growth and community structure

et al. 2021

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“…It can be speculated that increased activity under green light that is not directed towards feeding could entail major energetic costs to the animals in the long term. Additionally, Diamantopoulou et al (2021)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of artificial light at night (ALAN) on the gaping activity and feeding of mussels

Christoforou

Dominoni

Lindström

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Artificial light at night (ALAN) is one of the most widespread forms of environmental pollution. Studies on terrestrial organisms have shown that the effects of ALAN can be pervasive, and importantly, can depend on the colour (i.e., wavelength) of light. ALAN also affects marine environments as it is present in more than 22% of the world's coastlines and can reach depths of up to 100m. However, the impact of different colour ALAN on coastal marine organisms is under-investigated. In this study, we tested the effects of different ALAN colours on Mytilus edulis, a widespread coastal bivalve known for its high phytoplankton clearance capacity amongst other valuable ecosystem services. Using a lab-based valvometry system, we recorded the impact of red, green, and white ALAN on gaping activity patterns and phytoplankton clearance capacity of individual mussels and compared these to dark night control. Mussels exhibited a semi-diel activity pattern in both proportion of time open and gaping frequency. Although ALAN did not have significant effects on the proportion of time open it did significantly affect the gaping frequency. This effect was colour-specific with red and white ALAN resulting in lower activity compared to the dark night control but there were no effects on the phytoplankton consumption. Under green light, however, mussels showed a higher gaping frequency and reduced phytoplankton consumption with increasing time spent open compared to the other ALAN treatments and the dark control. Our findings suggest that ALAN does have colour-specific effects on mussels and indicate the importance of further investigating the physiological mechanisms behind these patterns, and their potential ecological consequences.

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“…In a few cases, ALAN (e.g., street lighting) has been shown to induce a photosynthetic response (Speißer et al, 2021), and to influence the growth and resource allocation of vascular plants (Bennie et al, 2016; Speißer et al, 2021), as well as algae (Diamantopoulou et al, 2021). Given that such direct impacts usually vary among plant species (Bennie et al, 2018a; Sanders et al, 2021; Speißer et al, 2021), ALAN is likely to affect the plant community structure (Bennie et al, 2018a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Matthew effect: Common species become more common and rare ones become more rare in response to artificial light at night

Liu

Speißer

Knop

et al. 2022

Global Change Biology

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Artificial light at night (ALAN) has been and still is rapidly spreading and has become an important component of global change. Although numerous studies have tested its potential biological and ecological impacts on animals, very few studies have tested whether it affects alien and native plants differently. Furthermore, common plant species, and particularly common alien species, are often found to benefit more from additional resources than rare native and rare alien species. Whether this is also the case with regard to increasing light due to ALAN is still unknown. Here, we tested how ALAN affected the performance of common and rare alien and native plant species in Germany directly, and indirectly via flying insects. We grew five common alien, six rare alien, five common native, and four rare native plant species under four combinations of two ALAN (no ALAN vs. ALAN) and two insect‐exclusion (no exclusion vs. exclusion) treatments, and compared their biomass production. We found that common plant species, irrespective of their origin, produced significantly more biomass than rare species and that this was particularly true under ALAN. Furthermore, alien species tended to show a slightly stronger positive response to ALAN than native species did (p = .079). Our study shows that common plant species benefited more from ALAN than rare ones. This might lead to competitive exclusion of rare species, which could have cascading impacts on other trophic levels and thus have important community‐wide consequences when ALAN becomes more widespread. In addition, the slightly more positive response of alien species indicates that ALAN might increase the risk of alien plant invasions.

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Wavelength-dependent effects of artificial light at night on phytoplankton growth and community structure

Cited by 5 publications

References 83 publications

Wavelength-dependent effects of artificial light at night on phytoplankton growth and community structure

Wavelength-dependent effects of artificial light at night on phytoplankton growth and community structure

The effects of artificial light at night (ALAN) on the gaping activity and feeding of mussels

The Matthew effect: Common species become more common and rare ones become more rare in response to artificial light at night

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