Artificial light during the polar night disrupts Arctic fish and zooplankton behaviour down to 200 m depth

• DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-0807-6
• Publication Date: 2020-03-05T17:03:07Z
• Authors: Jørgen Berge; Maxime Geoffroy; Malin Daase; Finlo Cottier; Pierre Priou; Jonathan H. Cohen; Geir Johnsen; David McKee; Ina Kostakis; Paul E. Renaud; Daniel Vogedes; Philip Anderson; Kim S. Last; Stephane Gauthier
• Keywords: Polar night; Fish stock

Abstract For organisms that remain active in one of the last undisturbed and pristine dark environments on planet—the Arctic Polar Night—the moon, stars aurora borealis may provide important cues to guide distribution behaviours, including predator-prey interactions. With a changing climate increased human activities Arctic, such natural light sources will many places be masked by much stronger illumination from artificial light. Here we show normal working-light ship disrupt fish zooplankton behaviour down at least 200 m depth across an area >0.125 km 2 around ship. Both quantitative qualitative nature disturbance differed between examined regions. We conclude biological surveys illuminated ships introduce biases sampling, bioacoustic surveys, possibly stock assessments commercial non-commercial species.