{"id":30310,"date":"2022-07-12T00:26:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-12T00:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=30310"},"modified":"2022-07-13T08:02:36","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T08:02:36","slug":"light-pollution-is-disrupting-the-seasonal-rhythms-of-plants-and-trees-lengthening-pollen-season-in-us-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/light-pollution-is-disrupting-the-seasonal-rhythms-of-plants-and-trees-lengthening-pollen-season-in-us-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Light pollution is disrupting the seasonal rhythms of plants and trees, lengthening pollen season in US cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yuyu Zhou<\/a>, Iowa State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Research Brief<\/a> is a short take about interesting academic work.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big idea<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

City lights that blaze all night are profoundly disrupting urban plants\u2019 phenology \u2013 shifting when their buds open in the spring and when their leaves change colors and drop in the fall. New research I coauthored shows how nighttime lights are lengthening the growing season in cities<\/a>, which can affect everything from allergies<\/a> to local economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our study, my colleagues and I analyzed trees and shrubs at about 3,000 sites in U.S. cities to see how they responded<\/a> under different lighting conditions over a five-year period. Plants use the natural day-night cycle<\/a> as a signal of seasonal change along with temperature<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found that artificial light alone advanced the date that leaf buds broke<\/a> in the spring by an average of about nine days compared to sites without nighttime lights. The timing of the fall color change in leaves was more complex, but the leaf change was still delayed on average by nearly six days across the lower 48 states. In general, we found that the more intense the light was, the greater the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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