Light pollution disrupts animal behavior and ecology in a variety of ways. Artificial lights can pull migrating birds off-course, can misdirect sea turtle hatchlings away from the ocean and can lure vast numbers of insects away from their natural habitats and normal behaviors. These effects are often detrimental or fatal to the affected animals, and insects especially experience high mortality through direct contact with light sources or higher exposure to predation. This stark increase in mortality constitutes a strong selective pressure, and populations might already be adapting to this recent anthropogenic stressor.
Florian Altermatt and Dieter Ebert, of the University of Zurich and University of Basel (Switzerland), respectively, examined the small ermine moth (Yponomeuta cagnagella) to evaluate whether such adaptation has already occurred in this species (Biol. Lett. 12, 20160111; 2016). The researchers collected larvae from regions with different amounts of light pollution and reared them to maturity in a common-garden experiment. They then introduced these moths to artificial light, finding that moths from populations that experience high light pollution were less likely to fly toward the light. Such findings illustrate the adaptability of certain populations to anthropogenic changes, but raise concern that such changes have already brought about long-term changes in affected populations. GDL
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