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Article Dans Une Revue Nature Année : 2017

Artificial light at night as a new threat to pollination

Résumé

Pollinators are declining worldwide 1 and this has raised concerns for a parallel decline in the essential pollination service they provide to both crops and wild plants 2,3. Anthropogenic drivers linked to this decline include habitat changes, intensive agriculture, pesticides, invasive alien species, spread of pathogens and climate change 1. Recently, the rapid global increase in artificial light at night 4 has been proposed to be a new threat to terrestrial ecosystems; the consequences of this increase for ecosystem function are mostly unknown 5,6. Here we show that artificial light at night disrupts nocturnal pollination networks and has negative consequences for plant reproductive success. In artificially illuminated plantpollinator communities, nocturnal visits to plants were reduced by 62% compared to dark areas. Notably, this resulted in an overall 13% reduction in fruit set of a focal plant even though the plant also received numerous visits by diurnal pollinators. Furthermore, by merging diurnal and nocturnal pollination sub-networks, we show that the structure of these combined networks tends to facilitate the spread of the negative consequences of disrupted nocturnal pollination to daytime pollinator communities. Our findings demonstrate that artificial light at night is a threat to pollination and that the negative effects of artificial light at night on nocturnal pollination are predicted to propagate to the diurnal community, thereby aggravating the decline of the diurnal community. We provide perspectives on the functioning of plant-pollinator communities, showing that nocturnal pollinators are not redundant to diurnal communities and increasing our understanding of the human-induced decline in pollinators and their ecosystem service. Animal-assisted pollination is a key ecosystem function for wild plant communities and 88% of all angiosperms depend on it to some extent 7. Pollination by animals is also a crucial ecosystem service for global food supply 1,8 ; the estimated economic value of pollination was US$361 × 10 9 in 2009 (ref. 9). Thus, pollination by animals is fundamental to both the functioning of natural ecosystems and food security. Concerns have been raised that the pollination provided by insects may be at risk 2,3 due to a worldwide decline in wild and managed pollinators as a consequence of human activity 1. The main factors causing this decline are considered to be habitat loss and degradation, conventional intensive agriculture including pesticide use, invasive alien species, pests and pathogens, and climate change 1. Recently, artificial light at night (ALAN) has been proposed as a factor that increasingly affects nocturnal pollinators 10,11. ALAN is rapidly spreading globally at an estimated rate of 6% per year 12. It has been shown to affect the physiology and behaviour of various organisms 13 , with consequences for species communities 14-16 and population dynamics 17. Changes in species communities because of ALAN may in turn affect associated ecosystem functions and processes, as has recently been demonstrated for aquatic microbial communities 14. For terrestrial systems, the effect(s) of ALAN on the functioning of communities, such as for pollinators and pollination, has yet to be demonstrated 5. The negative impact of ALAN might not be restricted to nocturnal pollinators and the plants they pollinate, but could propagate to
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Dates et versions

hal-03947729 , version 1 (19-01-2023)

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Eva Knop, Leana Zoller, Remo Ryser, Maurin Hörler, Colin Fontaine. Artificial light at night as a new threat to pollination. Nature, 2017, 548 (7666), pp.206-209. ⟨10.1038/nature23288⟩. ⟨hal-03947729⟩
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