ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Avian Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1592407
This article is part of the Research TopicEnvironmental Challenges to Avian Populations: A Physiological PerspectiveView all 4 articles
Partial night lighting may reduce the physiological impact of artificial light at night on captive zebra finches
Provisionally accepted
Rachel R Reid1*
Neal Dawson1Eleanor Duncan1Robert Gillespie1Christopher Mitchell2Claire J Branston1,3Pablo Capilla-Lasheras1,4,5Jelle Boonekamp1
Davide M Dominoni1- 1University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
- 2University of Exeter, Exeter, England, United Kingdom
- 3University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, Scotland, United Kingdom
- 4Swiss Ornithological Institute, Sempach, Switzerland
- 5Doñana Biological Station, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Seville, Spain
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Artificial light at night (ALAN) continues to increase at an unprecedented rate globally every year. ALAN can disrupt circadian rhythms and cause behavioural and physiological changes which may have knock on effects for health, yet we still understand very little about these effects. It is becoming increasingly important to investigate potential mitigation strategies, through understanding what aspects of ALAN negatively impact wildlife health.Methods: Here we present the results of an experiment where we investigated the impact of ALAN on various health biomarkers in 44 captive adult zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) over the course of four months. The health biomarkers measured included glucose concentration, change in relative telomere length, malondialdehyde, and antioxidant capacity of plasma. The birds were separated into three treatment groups consisting of 13-16 individuals and were either exposed to full light at night, partial light at night or darkness (control).We show that exposure to full light at night impacted the circadian pattern of glucose levels, with glucose concentrations remaining elevated later into the night compared to the control group.Full light at night also accelerated telomere shortening. However, the relationship between telomere length and treatment only became significant when the partial light at night treatment group was removed and should therefore be interpreted with caution. These effects were not observed under partial light at night.Our findings suggest that partial night lighting may mitigate some of ALAN's negative impacts on wildlife health. This approach could be a valuable tool in future strategies to reduce the ecological effects of light pollution in urban environments and should be investigated further.
Keywords: Avian health, Avian physiology, Artificial light, light pollution, Urban Ecology
Received: 12 Mar 2025; Accepted: 14 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Reid, Dawson, Duncan, Gillespie, Mitchell, Branston, Capilla-Lasheras, Boonekamp and Dominoni. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rachel R Reid, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.