Meeting Abstract
Urban areas present many challenges to resident organisms. With natural light during the day and artificial light at night, urban organisms are more exposed to ambient light compared to their natural habitat. Ambient light at night (ALAN) is a chronic stressor that greatly affects anoles as these organisms are commonly found in urban environments. Chronic stressors are known to affect glucocorticoid levels of organisms, and have cascading pathological effects on immune systems. Our objective was to study the effects that ALAN had on the immune response of green anoles (Anolis carolinensis). We housed 24 male A. carolinensis for six weeks in two separate treatments. The Control Treatment was housed in a 12:12 Light:Dark cycle, and the ALAN Treatment was housed in 24-hour ambient light. Both treatments were housed in similar temperature, humidity, and UV light conditions. After six weeks, we used a PHA (phytohemagglutinin) test to measure the T-cell immunocompetence of anoles in both treatments. The results collected from this study will help scientists studying ecoimmunology to determine the effects that a chronic stressor, like ALAN, has on the immune system of an organism.
