Artificial light during the polar night disrupts Arctic fish and zooplankton behaviour down to 200 m depth

Jørgen Berge; Maxime Geoffroy; Malin Daase; Finlo Cottier; Pierre Priou; Jonathan H. Cohen; Geir Johnsen; David McKee; Ina Kostakis; Paul E. Renaud; Daniel Vogedes; Philip Anderson; Kim S. Last; Stephane Gauthier

doi:10.1038/s42003-020-0807-6

Artificial light during the polar night disrupts Arctic fish and zooplankton behaviour down to 200 m depth

Jørgen Berge^*, Maxime Geoffroy, Malin Daase, Finlo Cottier, Pierre Priou, Jonathan H. Cohen, Geir Johnsen, David McKee, Ina Kostakis, Paul E. Renaud, Daniel Vogedes, Philip Anderson, Kim S. Last, Stephane Gauthier

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

For organisms that remain active in one of the last undisturbed and pristine dark environments on the planet—the Arctic Polar Night—the moon, stars and aurora borealis may provide important cues to guide distribution and behaviours, including predator-prey interactions. With a changing climate and increased human activities in the Arctic, such natural light sources will in many places be masked by the much stronger illumination from artificial light. Here we show that normal working-light from a ship may disrupt fish and zooplankton behaviour down to at least 200 m depth across an area of >0.125 km² around the ship. Both the quantitative and qualitative nature of the disturbance differed between the examined regions. We conclude that biological surveys in the dark from illuminated ships may introduce biases on biological sampling, bioacoustic surveys, and possibly stock assessments of commercial and non-commercial species.

Original language	English
Article number	102
Number of pages	8
Journal	Communications Biology
Volume	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-0807-6
Publication status	Published - 5 Mar 2020

Funding

The work was supported by three grants from the Norwegian Research Council: Arctic ABC (project no 244319, Arctic ABC Development (project no 245923), Deep Impact (project no 300333), and the Centre of Excellence AMOS (project no 223254). We would like to thank the crew onboard RV Helmer Hanssen for all their efforts and support during the field campaign. This is a contribution to the Arctos research network (arctos.uit.no), Arctic Science Partnership (www.asp-net.org), the Ocean Frontier Institute funded through the Canada First Research Excellence fund, and to the ArcticNet project ArcticFish.

Keywords

Arctic Polar Night
artificial light
marine life
zooplankton

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10.1038/s42003-020-0807-6Licence: CC BY 4.0

Berge-etal-CB-2020-Artificial-light-during-the-polar-night-disrupts-Arctic-fishFinal published version, 1.8 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

David McKee
- david.mckeestrath.acuk
- Physics - Professor
- MASTS
- SUPA
- Ocean, Air and Space
Person: Academic

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Berge, J., Geoffroy, M., Daase, M., Cottier, F., Priou, P., Cohen, J. H., Johnsen, G., McKee, D., Kostakis, I., Renaud, P. E., Vogedes, D., Anderson, P., Last, K. S., & Gauthier, S. (2020). Artificial light during the polar night disrupts Arctic fish and zooplankton behaviour down to 200 m depth. Communications Biology, 3, Article 102. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-0807-6

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abstract = "For organisms that remain active in one of the last undisturbed and pristine dark environments on the planet—the Arctic Polar Night—the moon, stars and aurora borealis may provide important cues to guide distribution and behaviours, including predator-prey interactions. With a changing climate and increased human activities in the Arctic, such natural light sources will in many places be masked by the much stronger illumination from artificial light. Here we show that normal working-light from a ship may disrupt fish and zooplankton behaviour down to at least 200 m depth across an area of >0.125 km2 around the ship. Both the quantitative and qualitative nature of the disturbance differed between the examined regions. We conclude that biological surveys in the dark from illuminated ships may introduce biases on biological sampling, bioacoustic surveys, and possibly stock assessments of commercial and non-commercial species.",

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AU - Berge, Jørgen

AU - Geoffroy, Maxime

AU - Daase, Malin

AU - Cottier, Finlo

AU - Priou, Pierre

AU - Cohen, Jonathan H.

AU - Johnsen, Geir

AU - McKee, David

AU - Kostakis, Ina

AU - Renaud, Paul E.

AU - Vogedes, Daniel

AU - Anderson, Philip

AU - Last, Kim S.

AU - Gauthier, Stephane

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N2 - For organisms that remain active in one of the last undisturbed and pristine dark environments on the planet—the Arctic Polar Night—the moon, stars and aurora borealis may provide important cues to guide distribution and behaviours, including predator-prey interactions. With a changing climate and increased human activities in the Arctic, such natural light sources will in many places be masked by the much stronger illumination from artificial light. Here we show that normal working-light from a ship may disrupt fish and zooplankton behaviour down to at least 200 m depth across an area of >0.125 km2 around the ship. Both the quantitative and qualitative nature of the disturbance differed between the examined regions. We conclude that biological surveys in the dark from illuminated ships may introduce biases on biological sampling, bioacoustic surveys, and possibly stock assessments of commercial and non-commercial species.

AB - For organisms that remain active in one of the last undisturbed and pristine dark environments on the planet—the Arctic Polar Night—the moon, stars and aurora borealis may provide important cues to guide distribution and behaviours, including predator-prey interactions. With a changing climate and increased human activities in the Arctic, such natural light sources will in many places be masked by the much stronger illumination from artificial light. Here we show that normal working-light from a ship may disrupt fish and zooplankton behaviour down to at least 200 m depth across an area of >0.125 km2 around the ship. Both the quantitative and qualitative nature of the disturbance differed between the examined regions. We conclude that biological surveys in the dark from illuminated ships may introduce biases on biological sampling, bioacoustic surveys, and possibly stock assessments of commercial and non-commercial species.

KW - Arctic Polar Night

KW - artificial light

KW - marine life

KW - zooplankton

U2 - 10.1038/s42003-020-0807-6

DO - 10.1038/s42003-020-0807-6

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VL - 3

JO - Communications Biology

JF - Communications Biology

M1 - 102

ER -

Artificial light during the polar night disrupts Arctic fish and zooplankton behaviour down to 200 m depth

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David McKee

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