Abstract
Artificial light at night (ALAN) is closely associated with modern societies and is rapidly increasing worldwide. A dynamically growing body of literature shows that ALAN poses a serious threat to all levels of biodiversity—from genes to ecosystems. Many “unknowns” remain to be addressed however, before we fully understand the impact of ALAN on biodiversity and can design effective mitigation measures. Here, we distilled the findings of a workshop on the effects of ALAN on biodiversity at the first World Biodiversity Forum in Davos attended by several major research groups in the field from across the globe. We argue that 11 pressing research questions have to be answered to find ways to reduce the impact of ALAN on biodiversity. The questions address fundamental knowledge gaps, ranging from basic challenges on how to standardize light measurements, through the multi-level impacts on biodiversity, to opportunities and challenges for more sustainable use.
Highlights
Our planet faces numerous challenges, many of which have direct and indirect connections to biodiversity (Díaz et al, 2020)
Increasing evidence shows that the interference of Artificial light at night (ALAN) with natural cycles of light and darkness, i.e., changes of photoperiod, intensity and spectra, influences a wide range of biological processes, from gene expression to ecosystem functioning, yet many questions remain about species and trait specific sensitivities to ALAN, and how these affect biodiversity at different scales (Gaston et al, 2015; Hopkins et al, 2018; Dominoni et al, 2020a; Falcon et al, 2020; Sanders et al, 2021; Figure 2)
Biodiversity has declined around the globe (IPBES, 2019) and global biodiversity is facing a sixth mass extinction (Barnosky et al, 2011)
Summary
Artificial light at night (ALAN) is closely associated with modern societies and is rapidly increasing worldwide. Many “unknowns” remain to be addressed before we fully understand the impact of ALAN on biodiversity and can design effective mitigation measures. We distilled the findings of a workshop on the effects of ALAN on biodiversity at the first World Biodiversity Forum in Davos attended by several major research groups in the field from across the globe. We argue that 11 pressing research questions have to be answered to find ways to reduce the impact of ALAN on biodiversity. The questions address fundamental knowledge gaps, ranging from basic challenges on how to standardize light measurements, through the multi-level impacts on biodiversity, to opportunities and challenges for more sustainable use
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