Abstract
Despite the overwhelming use of artificial light on captive animals, its effect on those animals has rarely been studied experimentally. Housing animals in controlled light conditions is useful for assessing the effects of light. The chicken is one of the best-studied animals in artificial light experiments, and here, we evaluate the effect of polychromatic light with various green and blue components on the growth and physiology in chicks. The results indicate that green-blue dual light has two side-effects on chick body mass, depending on the various green to blue ratios. Green-blue dual light with depleted and medium blue component decreased body mass, whereas enriched blue component promoted body mass in chicks compared with monochromatic green- or blue spectra-treated chicks. Moreover, progressive changes in the green to blue ratios of green-blue dual light could give rise to consistent progressive changes in body mass, as suggested by polychromatic light with higher blue component resulting in higher body mass. Correlation analysis confirmed that food intake was positively correlated with final body mass in chicks (R2 = 0.7664, P = 0.0001), suggesting that increased food intake contributed to the increased body mass in chicks exposed to higher blue component. We also found that chicks exposed to higher blue component exhibited higher blood glucose levels. Furthermore, the glucose level was positively related to the final body mass (R2 = 0.6406, P = 0.0001) and food intake (R2 = 0.784, P = 0.0001). These results demonstrate that spectral composition plays a crucial role in affecting growth and physiology in chicks. Moreover, consistent changes in spectral components might cause the synchronous response of growth and physiology.
Highlights
The widespread use of artificial light has enhanced the quality of human life and is positively associated with modernity, wealth and security, the rapid global increase in artificial light has fundamentally transformed the light environment over the past six decades in both quantity (6% increase per year, range: 0–20%) and quality [1, 2]
As humans and domestic animals are exposed to artificial light throughout their lives, experimental studies on effects of controlled spectral composition on growth and development in humans and domestic animals are urgently needed
The effects of monochromatic light (Green and Blue group) and polychromatic light (Blue-Depleted, Blue-Medium and Blue-Enriched) on the body mass of chicks are given in Fig. 2, which indicates that spectral composition had a significant influence on body mass of birds
Summary
The widespread use of artificial light has enhanced the quality of human life and is positively associated with modernity, wealth and security, the rapid global increase in artificial light has fundamentally transformed the light environment over the past six decades in both quantity (6% increase per year, range: 0–20%) and quality (light composition) [1, 2]. The circadian rhythmicity of humans and many domestic animals, when exposed over the long term to variously colored artificial light, is entrained by artificial light instead of typical sunlight. Interest has been rising around the mechanisms of individual response to artificial light [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. Published information on the consequence of spectral composition on individual growth is missing. The spectral composition of light in urban areas is very diverse, resulting in a mosaic-like spatial distribution of different wavelengths of artificial light systems [13]. As humans and domestic animals are exposed to artificial light throughout their lives, experimental studies on effects of controlled spectral composition on growth and development in humans and domestic animals are urgently needed
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