Dark Matters: The Effects of Artificial Lighting on Bats
By E. G. Rowse, Daniel Lewanzik, E. Stone, S. Harris, Gareth J. F. Jones. 2016
88 citations recorded by the source corpus.
While artificial lighting is a major component of global change, its biological impacts have only recently been recognised. Artificial lighting attracts and repels animals in taxon-specific ways and affects physiological processes. Being nocturnal, bats are likely to be strongly affected by artificial lighting. Moreover, many species of bats are insectivorous, and insects are also strongly influenced by lighting. Lighting technologies are changing rapidly, with the use of light-emitting diode (LED) lamps increasing. Impacts on bats and their prey depend on the light spectra produced by street lights ; ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths attract more insects and consequently insectivorous bats. Bat responses to lighting are species-specific and reflect differences in flight morphology and performance ; fast-flying aerial hawking species frequently feed around street lights, whereas relatively slow-flying bats that forage in more confined spaces are often light-averse. Both high-pressure sodium and LED lights reduce commuting activity by clutter-tolerant bats of the genera Myotis and Rhinolophus, and these bats still avoided LED lights when dimmed. Light-induced reductions in the activity of frugivorous bats may affect ecosystem services by reducing dispersal of the seeds of pioneer plants and hence reforestation. Rapid changes in street lighting offer the potential to explore mitigation methods such as part-night lighting (PNL), dimming, directed lighting, and motion-sensitive lighting that may have beneficial consequences for light-averse bat species .
Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Global and Planetary Change
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/68cf590c3a80c7d881365124c887754c18897c8e
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In Ecology
In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Citations in the corpus
- Cute, Creepy, or Crispy—How Values, Attitudes, and Norms Shape Human Behavior Toward Bats (2016, background): “…al. 2015; Williams-Guillén et al. 2016), urbanization and intensification (Altringham and Kerth 2015; Arnett et al. 2015; Jung and Threlfall 2015; Rowse et al. 2016), disturbance and loss of roosts (Furey and Racey 2015; Law et al. 2015; Voigt et al. 2016), and direct exploitation for bushmeat…”