Marine biologists have long suspected that too much artificial light can negatively affect the reproductive cycle of corals. In fact, in 2007, a team of Australian and Israeli researchers determined that light-sensitive proteins called cryptochromes were involved in this phenomenon , which help regulate circadian rhythms.
Now, experts in marine sciences from the universities of Queensland, in this same country, and those of Tel Aviv and Bar-Ilan, in Israel, indicate that the activity of these genes is interrupted in the colonies that are exposed to light artificial – like those that remain in total darkness -, which ultimately prevents corals from reproducing in this way.
Those responsible for this study, published in the journal eLife , also point out that the unwanted effects of light pollution occur more rapidly than previously believed, and that changes in nighttime light radiation are capable of affecting corals even within a week.
It is not clear to what extent this fact could determine its long-term conservation, but the desirable thing would be, in the opinion of these scientists, to avoid that the corals are exposed to sources of artificial light , since sexual reproduction – sometimes some They also do it asexually, through different types of excision or division – it is key to their survival.
