Artificial light at night (ALAN) is a growing anthropogenic stressor affecting all biological levels of complexity. Despite this, only a few studies have measured its influence on photosynthetic organisms, and even fewer its effects on macroalgae and their interaction with herbivores. Of particular interest is the potential influence of ALAN on secondary metabolites, such as phenolic compounds, that are used by macroalgae to deter herbivores.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMar Pollut Bull
November 2025
Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) is becoming a pervasive stressor in both terrestrial and marine habitats, posing a threat to species whose behavior and physiology rely on natural light/dark cycles. While numerous studies have examined the biological impacts of ALAN, far fewer have investigated the ability of organisms to recover from this stressor. This study used the sandy beach isopod Tylos spinulosus as a model species to assess the short-term effects of ALAN and its potential recovery following the removal of light sources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMar Environ Res
March 2025
The physical-chemical variability of coastal upwelling creates a mosaic of environmental conditions that affect different levels of biological organization. Understanding the mechanisms that organisms use to cope with this variability is critical for addressing the challenges that climate change imposes on coastal ecosystems. This study integrates information on transcriptomic traits, metabolic performance, and the quantity of organic biomolecules in the intertidal fish Girella laevifrons from four locations with varying upwelling intensities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArtificial Light at Night is recognized for its impact on various ecosystems, with coastal areas being particularly vulnerable. While a growing number of studies have identified Artificial Light at Night's impacts on species inhabiting these ecosystems, a critical gap is the limited attention that has been given to intraspecific variability in response to this stressor. This study focused on the sex-dependent influence of Artificial Light at Night on food consumption rates and absorption efficiency in males and females of the non-indigenous amphipod Ampithoe valida.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUS) sustains some of the most productive marine systems on Earth. Within each of these systems, the upwelling process exhibits spatial and temporal variation resulting in marked differences in upwelling intensity and seasonality along extensive coastlines. The study of this variation is well needed, given the magnitude of the services provided by upwelling, and the impending impacts of global warming on EBUS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUpwelling, as a large oceanographic phenomenon, increases coastal productivity and influences all levels of biological complexity. Despite decades of research on it, much remains to be understood about the impact of upwelling on the feeding behavior and thermal tolerance of important groups such as fish. Hence, our aim was to investigate how upwelling conditions modify the feeding behavior and thermal tolerance of a prominent intertidal fish, Girella laevifrons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArtificial light at night (ALAN) is a widespread human-induced disturbance, whose effects have been documented in many ecosystems. However, limited attention has been given to the source of the lights behind ALAN, so this study examined three of them: High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps and warm and cool white Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs). Laboratory experiments compared the effects of each type of light to natural day/night conditions, upon the activity, feeding behavior and growth of the isopod Tylos spinulosus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArtificial Light at Night (ALAN) threatens to disrupt most natural habitats and species, including those in coastal settings, where a growing number of studies have identified ALAN impacts. A careful examination of the light properties behind those impacts is important to better understand and manage the effects of this stressor. This study focused on ALAN monochromatic wavelengths and examined which types of light spectra altered the natural activity of two prominent coastal species from the Pacific southeast: the talitroid amphipod Orchestoidea tuberculata and the oniscoid isopod Tylos spinulosus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArtificial light at night (ALAN) is becoming a widespread stressor in coastal ecosystems, affecting species that rely on natural day/night cycles. Yet, studies examining ALAN effects remain limited, particularly in the case of sessile species. This study assessed the effects of ALAN upon the feeding activity and two molecular indicators in the widespread plumose sea anemone Metridium senile.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAt the regional scale, upwelling conditions are known to influence ecosystems and communities and their primary and secondary productivity. However, the influence of upwelling on local herbivore-algae interactions is less well understood. We address this question by cross-examining herbivores and seaweeds from sites associated with upwelling and downwelling conditions along the Humboldt Current System.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArtificial Light at Night (ALAN) alters cycles of day and night, potentially modifying species' behavior. We assessed whether exposure to ALAN influences decision-making (directional swimming) in an intertidal rockfish (Girella laevisifrons) from the Southeastern Pacific. Using a Y-maze, we examined if exposure to ALAN or natural day/night conditions for one week affected the number of visits and time spent in three Y-maze compartments: dark and lit arms ("safe" and "risky" conditions, respectively) and a neutral "non-decision" area.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUS) deliver cold, nutrient-rich waters, influencing coastal biota from the molecular to the ecosystem level. Although local upwelling (U) and downwelling (DU) conditions are often known, their influence on body attributes of relevant species has not been systematically compared within and between EBUS (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArtificial light at night (ALAN) is a pervasive but still under-recognized driver of global change. In coastal settings, a large majority of the studies assessing ALAN impacts has focused on individual species, even though it is unclear whether results gathered from single species can be used to predict community-wide responses. Similarly, these studies often treat species as single life-stage entities, ignoring the variation associated with distinct life stages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe investigated the combined effects of Ocean Warming (OW), Acidification (OA) and predator cues (Non-Consumptive Effects; NCEs) of two predators with contrasting feeding-digestion strategies on the mussel Perumytilus purpuratus. We considered starfish-NCEs (partially external digestion) and snail-NCEs (internal digestion). Mussels were exposed for 13 weeks to cross-factored OA (~500 and ~1400 μatm, pCO2) and OW (~15 and ~20 °C) conditions, in the presence/absence of NCEs from one or both predators.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComp Biochem Physiol Part D Genomics Proteomics
March 2023
Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and its absorption across the ocean surface will alter natural variations in pH and temperature levels, occurring in coastal upwelling ecosystems. The scallop Argopecten purpuratus, one of the most economically important species farmed in northern Chile, has been shown to be vulnerable to these environmental drivers. However, the regulatory responses at the gene-level of scallops to these climate stressors remain almost unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Total Environ
February 2023
Upwelling oceanographic phenomenon is associated with increased food availability, low seawater temperature and pH. These conditions could significantly affect food quality and, in consequence, the growth of marine species. One of the most important organismal traits is somatic growth, which is highly related to skeletal muscle.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMar Pollut Bull
November 2022
We assess the role of direct and indirect effects of coastal environmental drivers (including the parameters of the carbonate system) on energy expenditure (MR) and body mass (M) of the intertidal mussel, Perumytilus purpuratus, across 10 populations distributed over 2800 km along the Southern Eastern Pacific (SEP) coast. We find biogeographic and local variation in carbonate system variables mediates the effects of latitude and temperature on metabolic rate allometry along the SEP coast. Also, the fitted Piecewise Structural Equation models (PSEM) have greater predictive ability (conditional R = 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe influence of artificial light at night (ALAN) is becoming evident in marine sandy beaches. These habitats are dominated by species reliant on natural daylight/night regimes, making the identification of biological indicators a priority. We assessed the applicability of hemocyanin, an oxygen-transport protein in the hemolymph of many invertebrates, as an indicator of ALAN-related stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUpwelling systems deliver nutrient-rich water into coastal ecosystems, influencing primary productivity and potentially altering seaweed-herbivore interactions. Upwelling bottom-up effects on distinct trophic levels are well-known. However, their influence on seaweed biomolecules and on algae-herbivore interactions and growth are less known.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Rev Camb Philos Soc
December 2022
Sandy beaches are iconic interfaces that functionally link the ocean with the land via the flow of organic matter from the sea. These cross-ecosystem fluxes often comprise uprooted seagrass and dislodged macroalgae that can form substantial accumulations of detritus, termed 'wrack', on sandy beaches. In addition, the tissue of the carcasses of marine animals that regularly wash up on beaches form a rich food source ('carrion') for a diversity of scavenging animals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe globally widespread adoption of Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) began in the mid-20th century. Yet, it is only in the last decade that a renewed research focus has emerged into its impacts on ecological and biological processes in the marine environment that are guided by natural intensities, moon phase, natural light and dark cycles and daily light spectra alterations. The field has diversified rapidly from one restricted to impacts on a handful of vertebrates, to one in which impacts have been quantified across a broad array of marine and coastal habitats and species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnvironmental variation alters biological interactions and their ecological and evolutionary consequences. In coastal systems, trematode parasites affect their hosts by disrupting their life-history traits. However, the effects of parasitism could be variable and dependent on the prevailing environmental conditions where the host-parasite interaction occurs.
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