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Fatal Attraction of Short-Tailed Shearwaters to Artificial Lights

Light pollution is increasing around the world and altering natural nightscapes with potential ecological and evolutionary consequences. A severe ecological perturbation caused by artificial lights is mass mortalities of organisms, including seabird fledglings that are attracted to lights at night o...

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Autores principales: Rodríguez, Airam, Burgan, Graeme, Dann, Peter, Jessop, Roz, Negro, Juan J., Chiaradia, Andre
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4198200/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25334014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110114
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author Rodríguez, Airam
Burgan, Graeme
Dann, Peter
Jessop, Roz
Negro, Juan J.
Chiaradia, Andre
author_facet Rodríguez, Airam
Burgan, Graeme
Dann, Peter
Jessop, Roz
Negro, Juan J.
Chiaradia, Andre
author_sort Rodríguez, Airam
collection PubMed
description Light pollution is increasing around the world and altering natural nightscapes with potential ecological and evolutionary consequences. A severe ecological perturbation caused by artificial lights is mass mortalities of organisms, including seabird fledglings that are attracted to lights at night on their first flights to the sea. Here, we report on the number of fledging short-tailed shearwaters Ardenna tenuirostris found grounded in evening and morning rescue patrols conducted at Phillip Island, Australia, during a 15-year period (1999–2013). We assessed factors affecting numbers of grounded birds and mortality including date, moon phase, wind direction and speed, number of visitors and holiday periods. We also tested experimentally if birds were attracted to lights by turning the lights off on a section of the road. Of 8871 fledglings found, 39% were dead or dying. This mortality rate was 4–8 times higher than reported elsewhere for other shearwater species, probably because searching for fledglings was part of our systematic rescue effort rather than the opportunistic rescue used elsewhere. Thus, it suggests that light-induced mortality of seabirds is usually underestimated. We rescued more birds (dead and alive) in peak fledging, moonless and windy nights. Mortality increased through the fledging period, in the mornings and with increased traffic on holiday periods. Turning the road lights off decreased the number of grounded birds (dead and alive). While moon, wind and time are uncontrolled natural constraints, we demonstrated that reduction of light pollution and better traffic management can mitigate artificial light-induced mortality.
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spelling pubmed-41982002014-10-21 Fatal Attraction of Short-Tailed Shearwaters to Artificial Lights Rodríguez, Airam Burgan, Graeme Dann, Peter Jessop, Roz Negro, Juan J. Chiaradia, Andre PLoS One Research Article Light pollution is increasing around the world and altering natural nightscapes with potential ecological and evolutionary consequences. A severe ecological perturbation caused by artificial lights is mass mortalities of organisms, including seabird fledglings that are attracted to lights at night on their first flights to the sea. Here, we report on the number of fledging short-tailed shearwaters Ardenna tenuirostris found grounded in evening and morning rescue patrols conducted at Phillip Island, Australia, during a 15-year period (1999–2013). We assessed factors affecting numbers of grounded birds and mortality including date, moon phase, wind direction and speed, number of visitors and holiday periods. We also tested experimentally if birds were attracted to lights by turning the lights off on a section of the road. Of 8871 fledglings found, 39% were dead or dying. This mortality rate was 4–8 times higher than reported elsewhere for other shearwater species, probably because searching for fledglings was part of our systematic rescue effort rather than the opportunistic rescue used elsewhere. Thus, it suggests that light-induced mortality of seabirds is usually underestimated. We rescued more birds (dead and alive) in peak fledging, moonless and windy nights. Mortality increased through the fledging period, in the mornings and with increased traffic on holiday periods. Turning the road lights off decreased the number of grounded birds (dead and alive). While moon, wind and time are uncontrolled natural constraints, we demonstrated that reduction of light pollution and better traffic management can mitigate artificial light-induced mortality. Public Library of Science 2014-10-15 /pmc/articles/PMC4198200/ /pubmed/25334014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110114 Text en © 2014 Rodríguez et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rodríguez, Airam
Burgan, Graeme
Dann, Peter
Jessop, Roz
Negro, Juan J.
Chiaradia, Andre
Fatal Attraction of Short-Tailed Shearwaters to Artificial Lights
title Fatal Attraction of Short-Tailed Shearwaters to Artificial Lights
title_full Fatal Attraction of Short-Tailed Shearwaters to Artificial Lights
title_fullStr Fatal Attraction of Short-Tailed Shearwaters to Artificial Lights
title_full_unstemmed Fatal Attraction of Short-Tailed Shearwaters to Artificial Lights
title_short Fatal Attraction of Short-Tailed Shearwaters to Artificial Lights
title_sort fatal attraction of short-tailed shearwaters to artificial lights
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4198200/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25334014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110114
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