Fig. 3: ALAN advances the period of minimum light intensity between sunset and the rise of the full moon that provides the trigger for broadcast spawning.
From: Global disruption of coral broadcast spawning associated with artificial light at night
Natural regimes of darkness (dark gray) at the sea surface are modeled, accounting for solar altitude, and lunar phase and altitude, for a mid-latitude (Eilat Coral Nature Reserve) and a low-latitude (Pulau Bara Lompo) coral reef (Methods). The ALAN regime (red) is assumed to trigger lights on at dusk and off at dawn, with the maximum sea surface irradiance derived from ref. 17. Periods of natural darkness that are masked by ALAN are depicted in light gray. Green arrows indicate the first two nights following the full moon, where a period of natural minimum irradiance (y-axis = 0) between sunset and moonrise is detectable to corals. Red arrows indicate the first nights following the full moon, where ALAN advances the period of minimum light intensity between sunset and moonrise. Raw data is provided as a Source Data file.
