Meeting Abstract
Artificial light at night (ALAN) is defined as artificial light that alters the natural light dark patterns in ecosystems. ALAN can have a suite of effects on community structure and is a driver of evolutionary processes that influences a range of behavioral and physiological traits. Research on the effects of ALAN on amphibians is lacking and is important as ALAN could contribute to stress and declines of these populations, particularly in urban areas. We tested the hypothesis that exposure to constant light would induce a stress response in Eurycea sosorum. We exposed adult E. sosorum to either constant light or a natural light regimen for 14 days. We used water-borne hormones to measure corticosterone (CORT) release rates after two days of exposure and at the end of the experiment. We found a time by treatment interaction with individuals in the control having higher CORT release rates than in constant light on day 2, on day 14 the CORT went down for the control treatment but didn’t change for the ALAN treatment. These results could suggest that the salamanders were stressed by the process of relocating and while the control group was able to mount a stress response, the potential stress of constant exposure to light may have caused a disruption of the HPA axis in the ALAN treatment salamanders. Overall these data suggest that ALAN can affect CORT levels in E. sosorum, but further investigation is needed to fully understand how ALAN may interact with additional stressors.
