Light Pollution Disrupts Seasonal Rhythms of Plants and Trees, What Are the Hazards for Health?
City lights on throughout the night, identified as light pollution, are reported to greatly disrupt the phenology of urban plants. New research by ...
Light Pollution Disrupts Seasonal Rhythms of Plants and Trees, What Are the Hazards for Health?
City lights on throughout the night, identified as light pollution, are reported to greatly disrupt the phenology of urban plants. New research by Yuyu Zhou, Associate Professor in the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, Iowa State University, shows how lights extend the growing season in cities. This can affect many things, from allergies to the local economy. In the study with his colleagues, Zhou analyzed trees and shrubs in about 3,000 locations in US cities to see how they responded to different lighting conditions over five years. Plants use the natural day-night cycle to signal the changing seasons. They found that artificial light had accelerated the blooming date of flower buds in spring by an average of about nine days earlier than sites without nighttime lights. The timing of fall color change in leaves is more complex, but leaf change is still delayed by an average of nearly six days in 48 states. "In general, we found that the stronger the light, the bigg…
