TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hoffmann, Julia
A1  - Schirmer, Annika
A1  - Eccard, Jana
T1  - Light pollution affects space use and interaction of two small mammal species irrespective of personality
T2  - BMC Ecology
N2  - Background: Artificial light at night (ALAN) is one form of human-induced rapid environmental changes (HIREC) and is strongly interfering with natural dark–light cycles. Some personality types within a species might be better suited to cope with environmental change and therefore might be selected upon under ongoing urbanization.

Results: We used LED street lamps in a large outdoor enclosure to experimentally investigate the effects of ALAN on activity patterns, movement and interaction of individuals of two species, the bank vole (Myodes glareolus) and the striped field mouse (Apodemus agrarius). We analyzed effects combined with individual boldness score. Both species reduced their activity budget during daylight hours. While under natural light conditions home ranges were larger during daylight than during nighttime, this difference vanished under ALAN. Conspecifics showed reduced home range overlap, proximity and activity synchrony when subjected to nighttime illumination. Changes in movement patterns in reaction to ALAN were not associated with differences in boldness score of individuals.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that light pollution can lead to changes in movement patterns and individual interactions in small mammals. This could lead to fitness consequences on the population level.
KW  - Nighttime illumination
KW  - Rodents
KW  - Outdoor enclosure
KW  - Animal personality
KW  - Interspecific interactions
KW  - HIREC
Y1  - 2019
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/43629
SN  - 1472-6785
VL  - 19
PB  - BioMed Central
CY  - London
ER  -