Artificial Light Increases Nighttime Prevalence of Predatory Fishes, Altering Community Composition on Coral Reefs.

ABSTRACT: Artificial light at night (ALAN) is an anthropogenic pollutant that is intensifying and expanding in marine environments, but experimental studies of community-level effects are generally lacking. The inshore, shallow, and clear-water locations of coral reefs and their diverse photosensitive inhabitants make these ecosystems highly susceptible to biological disturbances; at the same time, their biodiversity and accessibility make them model systems for wider insight. Here, we experimentally manipulated ALAN using underwater LED lights on a Polynesian reef system to investigate the influence on localised nighttime fish communities compared to control sites without ALAN. We collected infrared video censuses of baseline communities prior to manipulation, which we repeated following short-term

SUBMITTER: Weschke E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11653166 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature