Night Environment

The night expression Environnement is a convenience used since the years 1990 to describe the part of the Environnement (with the direction interactions species-mediums) which depends functionally on the night (i.e. of the absence of solar light or artificial)…

… is being ecological systems including of the exclusively night species, i.e. for which the presence of artificial light, even the simple light of full moon can inhibit or block any activity.

… is being ecological systems affected by the artificial light (which disturb by the dazzling, of the relations of attraction or repulsion, and/or by the production of mélatonine at many animal species, and by there affects the dates and phenomena of reproduction, moults, migration, food, hibernation, estivation, etc

The night environment is the least studied part of the environment, because more discrete in our eyes and requiring average private individuals, in addition to working during the night.

Relative definition:

Certain species can have a night activity with the state of larvae and Diurne in an adult state or conversely. Sometimes a species is diurnal, but depends completely (for its food, its Pollinisation, etc) on night species, or conversely. Many species are rather night, but with an activity more marked with sleeping and the rising of the sun. There exist even plants of the arid mediums (cactées) which produce oxygen the night after having accumulated solar energy the day, for less evaporating water.

The night is not always black. It starts with the setting one and finishes with the paddle. Just as the duration of the day many processes of alive at the species known as “diurnal” influences, the species known as “night” are sensbiles at the seasonal rates/rhythms, and the duration of the night, but also with the lunar cycles and the luminosity of the moon (which can for example inhibit or on the contrary to excite the activity of certain animals, including watery).

Certain species (photophobes) flee the sunlight, but have nevertheless a working life with the schedules considered as diurnal (but in the caves, the Sol (pedology), in the Deadwood or under the bark S, or in great sea-beds where solar light does not penetrate).

The field of the night Environment

This concept interests as well the ecologist, as the geographer, the town planner, the lighting engineer, the developer or the sociologist, when they want to fit in the field of the bearable development, because the night environment are limited more and more by the illumination, which has components socio-psychological or economic complex and important. The night Environment remains a field little explored by science. One of its components is the human health in its relationships to the nychthemeral cycle (day-night).

Many animal species are exclusively night for whole or part of their development cycle. For these species said sometimes that the black (the nocturnity ; darkness for the Anglo-Saxons) has almost value of Habitat, so much their survival depends on it. Same manner that certain species are xerophilous (they require for a dry habitat), others are night.

The concept of “night environmental” also appears at those which work on the impacts of the harmful effects and pollution generated by the large airports which function of night (Orly, Roissy in France, but a hundred area would be concerned in Europe).

Examples

The bat for example have a whole a primarily night activity, and for the majority of the species, they seem affected by lighting artificiel.
Many Amphibians of the tropical zones have an intense night activity, but those which have a diurnal activity can be disturbed and threatened by certain forms of illumination (it is one of the aspects of the luminous Pollution).
The night butterflies are much more numerous than the diurnal butterflies, but the night species are badly known.

The ecological systems which adapted since “mists of time evolutionary” to the night Environment are characterized by the presence of animal species which developed bodies of the new directions (ex: echolocation of the bat) or which has highly developed certain bodies (larger eyes, highly developed retina, bodies of the hearing and the sense of smell more developed, capacity to perceive the infra-red ones, or the vibrations of the ground…). These species can be affected by luminous pollution, but also by the noise, certain odors or hormonal lures or by the ultrasounds of human origin…
Même the mushrooms have a circadian rate/rhythm, which controls for example the emission of the spores (the disappearance of the light or a certain wavelength is enough to release the spores). The biomolecular mechanism is still badly included/understood by it, but he is studied, starting from pathogenic mushroom for agriculture Neurospora fouled or Magnaporthe grisea (pathogenic of rice), with the idea to discover a new means of controlling certain pathogenic by modifying their internal clock. In illuminant the mushroom at one critical time, one could block his good reproduction, as it was noted that by plowing a field in the black 80% of seeds of adventitious did not germinate if they were not enlightened in the 4:00 after their exposure to the air.

See too

External bonds

Presentation of the operation " Harms of the obscurité" (which is done in the Benelux countries, since more than 12 years in Belgian Flanders)

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