All the lighting that lets us enjoy life after the sun goes down is apparently making fish absolutely miserable, turning them into the angry, bitter curmudgeons of the sea who, if they had hands instead of fins, would be standing on their coral reefs shaking a fist at humanity, demanding that we turn off the lights.
According to a new study published in Current Biology, even relatively low levels of artificial light spilling into coastal waters from cities, roads, ports, and beachfront development are enough to wreck the sleep schedules of reef fish, a thing that I and a lot of us have in common with fish, apparently.
Specifically, researchers studying blue-green damselfish in the Red Sea found that fish exposed to nighttime light pollution slept less and woke up more often. They would also wander outside the safety of their coral homes and picked more fights and started eating at odd hours — basically, exhibiting all the signs of a toxic grump who should be in therapy, or should at least invest in a sleep mask.
Consider Changing Your Nighttime Habits to Protect Your Local Fish
Researchers at Bar-Ilan University also found elevated markers associated with DNA damage in brain cells after only a few nights of disrupted sleep. The study doesn’t prove that artificial light directly damages DNA, but it suggests that interrupting the brain’s nightly repair process could have lasting consequences. Those effects persisted during a five-month field study.
The problem isn’t limited to any one reef in any one spot in the world. As Phys.org points out, roughly 22 percent of the world’s coastlines and more than a third of marine protected areas are already getting blasted by artificial light at night. All of this light pollution has been shown to affect a fish’s relationship to their environment and can impact mating habits.
As for a fix, the researchers aren’t recommending anything bold. Just simple, practical solutions like reducing unnecessary nighttime light and pointing lights away from the shoreline are all it takes. And maybe just a little bit of innovation in the development of a more wildlife-friendly lighting system.
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