Early-life exposure to artificial light at night elevates physiological stress in free-living songbirds☆

Grunst, Melissa L.; Raap, Thomas; Grunst, Andrea S.; Pinxten, Rianne; Parenteau, Charline; Angelier, Frédéric; Eens, Marcel

doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2019.113895

Cited by 31 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Urban birds showed increased fCORT in response to ALAN compared with dark control birds, while the opposite was true for forest birds. These results are similar to those recently observed in a suburban population of great tits, where fCORT increased in nestlings exposed to ALAN ( Grunst et al 2020 ). These results suggest that urban blue tit nestlings did not hatch with a lower sensitivity to ALAN, contrary to what we hypothesized.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…However, this analysis did not rule out the possibility that specific taxa might be more sensitive to the effects of ALAN than others. Indeed, all avian studies published to date have reported an increase of baseline corticosterone (CORT) concentrations in response to ALAN ( Ouyang et al 2015 ; Russ et al 2015 ; Alaasam et al 2018 ; Mishra et al 2019 ; Grunst et al 2020 ; Malek et al 2020 ). It is of note that the effects of ALAN in birds are wavelength-specific, as effects were only seen with short wavelength light with amber and red light having no effect on CORT concentrations ( Ouyang et al 2015 ; Alaasam et al 2018 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is of note that the effects of ALAN in birds are wavelength-specific, as effects were only seen with short wavelength light with amber and red light having no effect on CORT concentrations ( Ouyang et al 2015 ; Alaasam et al 2018 ). The majority of the studies of the effects of ALAN on physiological stress has either been conducted in captivity ( Alaasam et al 2018 ; Mishra et al 2019 ; Malek et al 2020 ), or in unlit areas where birds had likely not previously been exposed to ALAN ( Ouyang et al 2015 ; Grunst et al 2020 ). A single study has investigated the effects of ALAN along a light pollution gradient ( Russ et al 2015 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Feather, But Not Plasma, Glucocorticoid Response to Artificial Light at Night Differs between Urban and Forest Blue Tit Nestlings

Dominoni

Teo

Branston

et al. 2021

Integrative and Comparative Biology

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Urbanization drives phenotypic variation in many animal species. This includes behavioral and physiological traits such as activity patterns, aggression, and hormone levels. A current challenge of urban evolutionary ecology is to understand the environmental drivers of phenotypic variation in cities. Moreover, do individuals develop tolerance to urban environmental factors, which underlie adaptative responses and contribute to the evolution of urban populations? Most available evidence comes from correlative studies and rare experiments where a single urban-related environmental factor has been manipulated in the field. Here we present the results of an experiment in which we tested for differences in the glucocorticoid (CORT) response of urban and rural blue tits nestlings (Cyanistes caeruleus) to artificial light at night (ALAN). ALAN has been suggested to alter CORT response in several animal species, but to date no study has investigated whether this effect of ALAN differs between urban and rural populations. Immediately after hatching, urban and forest broods were either exposed to 2 lux of ALAN (using an LED source mounted inside the nestbox) or received no treatment (dark control). The experiment lasted until the chicks fledged. When the chicks were 13 days old plasma samples were collected to measure baseline CORT concentrations, and feather samples to provide an integrative measure of CORT during growth. Forest birds had higher plasma CORT (pCORT) concentrations than their urban counterparts, irrespective of whether they were exposed to ALAN or not. Conversely, we found population-specific responses of feather CORT to ALAN. Specifically, urban birds that received ALAN had increased feather CORT compared with the urban dark controls, while the opposite was true for the forest birds. pCORT concentrations were negatively associated to fledging success, irrespective of population and treatment, while feather CORT was positively associated to fledging success in broods exposed to ALAN, but negatively in the dark control ones. Our results demonstrate that ALAN can play a role in determination of the glucocorticoid phenotype of wild animals, and may thus contribute to phenotypic differences between urban and rural animals.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Feather, But Not Plasma, Glucocorticoid Response to Artificial Light at Night Differs between Urban and Forest Blue Tit Nestlings

Dominoni

Teo

Branston

et al. 2021

Integrative and Comparative Biology

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“…Of the full-text articles, we removed 152 studies that did not fulfill our inclusion criteria. We statistically analyzed 15 of the remaining 31 studies, the ones that provided raw data for analysis [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. The other 16 studies appeared to fit criteria but did not provide raw data for analysis [44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58].…”

Section: Literature Search and Study Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-term elevations in glucocorticoids do not alter telomere lengths: A systematic review and meta-analysis of non-primate vertebrate studies

Zane

Ensminger

Vázquez‐Medina

2021

Preprint

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Background: The neuroendocrine stress response allows vertebrates to cope with stressors via the activation of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis, which ultimately results in the secretion of glucocorticoids (CORT). Glucocorticoids have pleiotropic effects on behavior and physiology, and might influence telomere length dynamics. During a stress event, CORT mobilizes energy towards survival mechanisms rather than to telomere maintenance. Additionally, reactive oxidative species produced in response to increased CORT levels can damage telomeres, also leading to telomere shortening. In our systematic review and meta-analysis, we tested whether CORT levels impact telomere length and if this relationship differs among time frame, life history stage, or stressor type. We hypothesized that elevated CORT levels are linked to a decrease in telomere length. Methods: To test this hypothesis, we conducted a literature search for studies investigating the relationship between telomere length and CORT levels in non-human vertebrates using four search engines Web of Science, Google Scholar, Pubmed and Scopus, last searched on September 27th, 2020. This review identified 31 studies examining the relationship between CORT and telomere length. We pooled the data using Fishers Z for 15 of these studies. All quantitative studies underwent a risk of bias assessment. This systematic review study was registered in the Open Science Framework Registry (https://osf.io/rqve6). Results: The pooled effect size from fifteen studies and 1066 study organisms shows no relationship between CORT and telomere length (Fishers Z= 0.1042, 95% CI = 0.0235; 0.1836). While these results support some previous findings, other studies have found a direct relationship between CORT and telomere dynamics, suggesting underlying mechanisms or concepts that are not currently taken into account in our analysis. The risk of bias assessment revealed an overall low risk of bias with occasional instances of bias from missing outcome data or bias in the reported result.

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“…One of the most prevalent but least understood anthropogenic changes that impact living beings is the light pollution in the form of artificial light at night (ALAN). ALAN appears to be a massive threat to the growing human-environment conflicts, as it intervenes with all the three primary requirements (food, habitat, and health) for the sustainability of life in various animal species including humans (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6). ALAN is one of the significant components of human-induced selection pressure, which has dramatically changed the trajectory, the rate of extinction, and speciation in this Anthropocene (7).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Artificial Light at Night (ALAN): A Potential Anthropogenic Component for the COVID-19 and HCoVs Outbreak

et al. 2020

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The origin of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is zoonotic. The circadian day-night is the rhythmic clue to organisms for their synchronized body functions. The "development for mankind" escalated the use of artificial light at night (ALAN). In this article, we tried to focus on the possible influence of this anthropogenic factor in human coronavirus (HCoV) outbreak. The relationship between the occurrences of coronavirus and the ascending curve of the night-light has also been delivered. The ALAN influences the physiology and behavior of bat, a known nocturnal natural reservoir of many Coronaviridae. The "threatened" and "endangered" status of the majority of bat species is mainly because of the destruction of their proper habit and habitat predominantly through artificial illumination. The stress exerted by ALAN leads to the impaired body functions, especially endocrine, immune, genomic integration, and overall rhythm features of different physiological variables and behaviors in nocturnal animals. Night-light disturbs "virus-host" synchronization and may lead to mutation in the genomic part of the virus and excessive virus shedding. We also proposed some future strategies to mitigate the repercussions of ALAN and for the protection of the living system in the earth as well.

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Early-life exposure to artificial light at night elevates physiological stress in free-living songbirds☆

Cited by 31 publications

References 100 publications

Feather, But Not Plasma, Glucocorticoid Response to Artificial Light at Night Differs between Urban and Forest Blue Tit Nestlings

Feather, But Not Plasma, Glucocorticoid Response to Artificial Light at Night Differs between Urban and Forest Blue Tit Nestlings

Short-term elevations in glucocorticoids do not alter telomere lengths: A systematic review and meta-analysis of non-primate vertebrate studies

Artificial Light at Night (ALAN): A Potential Anthropogenic Component for the COVID-19 and HCoVs Outbreak

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