Urbanization's Impact on Plant Growth: Artificial Light and Higher Temperatures Extend City Bloom
Urban greenery blooms and matures more abundantly and earlier due to city conditions, such as warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide concentration.
Street lamps, billboards, and bright city lights throwing their glow even at night - cities have become a kaleidoscope of lights. And this artificial light has its effects on our floral friends, according to a new study.
Cities are warmer than their surrounding countryside, thanks to the urban heat island effect. This warmth, combined with the extensive artificial lighting, disrupts the natural growth periods of plants. In a research published in the journal "Nature Cities", a team of scientists discovered that artificial urban lighting delays the end of the plant's growth season in autumn by more than eleven days, on average. Unexpectedly, it also triggers the start of the growth period about 12.5 days earlier.
Artificial Light: A Game Changer
Many cities experience a growth period that starts earlier and lasts longer than those in rural areas, primarily due to artificial light. The study revealed that artificial light plays a more decisive role than temperature increases in extending the growing seasons in urban areas.
The scientists could separate the effects of temperature and light on the growth periods using calculations. In spring, both temperature and lighting have an equal contribution to the early blooming of city plants compared to rural ones. However, in autumn, only artificial light appears to delay the coloring and shedding of leaves, hence extending the photo-period.
Not All Cities Are Affected Equally
Not every city experiences the same impact of artificial light and heat on plant growth periods. Some cities with higher temperatures may actually have a shorter growing season due to water scarcity. In these cases, the extended temperatures negate the extension of the growing season caused by artificial light by reducing water availability, which accelerates the development in autumn.
LED Lights: A New Factor
With the growing implementation of LED lights, the study suggests that these could potentially revolutionize the way artificial light impacts plant development. The switch to LED lighting, with its more pronounced blue light emissions, could profoundly change the influence of artificial light on plant development, a question that has largely remained unexplored thus far.
Together, urban heat and artificial light create an intricate environment that fosters growth in city plants. These findings open up a new avenue for understanding the interplay between urbanization, temperature, and light on natural ecosystems.
- Temperatures
- Ecosystem
Enrichment Data:Artificial light at night (ALAN) is a significant factor in prolonging urban plant growth cycles. City lighting extends the duration of illumination beyond natural daylight hours, keeping plants physiologically active during periods that should otherwise be dark. This extended light exposure results in a longer growing season in urban areas compared to rural or peri-urban regions, even when temperatures are the same.
ModernLED technologies offer customizable light spectra beneficial for plant growth, leveraging the plants' primary response to blue and red wavelengths. Blue light encourages vegetative (leaf) growth, while red light fosters flowering when combined with blue light. These advancements in LED lighting technology can lead to efficient growth optimizations both for indoor agriculture and potential indirect effects on urban plant growth through LED street lighting.
New investigations are needed to examine the impact of the "blue-rich" light emitted by LEDs on plant development and flowering times, as it may have profound implications for the structure and function of urban ecosystems.
- The study published in the journal "Nature Cities" found that artificial urban lighting, particularly from sources like street lamps and billboards, plays a significant role in extending the growing seasons of city plants by more than eleven days on average, and even triggering an earlier start to the growth period.
- The research also suggests that the growing implementation of LED lights could potentially revolutionize the way artificial light impacts plant development due to their more pronounced blue light emissions, which could have profound implications for the structure and function of urban environmental-science ecosystems.
- In the realm of health-and-wellness and fitness-and-exercise, the advancements in LED lighting technology can lead to efficient growth optimizations both for indoor agriculture and potentially indirect effects on urban plant growth through LED street lighting, as modern LEDs offer customizable light spectra beneficial for plant growth, leveraging the plants' primary response to blue and red wavelengths.
