Is Ambient Light during the High Arctic Polar Night Sufficient to Act as a Visual Cue for Zooplankton?
The light regime is an ecologically important factor in pelagic habitats, influencing a range of biological processes. However, the availability and importance of light to these processes in high Arctic zooplankton communities during periods of 'complete' darkness (polar night) are poorly...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4454649 2023-05-15T14:37:36+02:00 Is Ambient Light during the High Arctic Polar Night Sufficient to Act as a Visual Cue for Zooplankton? Cohen, Jonathan H. Berge, Jørgen Moline, Mark A. Sørensen, Asgeir J. Last, Kim Falk-Petersen, Stig Renaud, Paul E. Leu, Eva S. Grenvald, Julie Cottier, Finlo Cronin, Heather Menze, Sebastian Norgren, Petter Varpe, Øystein Daase, Malin Darnis, Gerald Johnsen, Geir 2015-06-03 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454649/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26039111 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0126247 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454649/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26039111 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0126247 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication CC0 PDM Research Article Text 2015 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0126247 2015-06-14T00:10:25Z The light regime is an ecologically important factor in pelagic habitats, influencing a range of biological processes. However, the availability and importance of light to these processes in high Arctic zooplankton communities during periods of 'complete' darkness (polar night) are poorly studied. Here we characterized the ambient light regime throughout the diel cycle during the high Arctic polar night, and ask whether visual systems of Arctic zooplankton can detect the low levels of irradiance available at this time. To this end, light measurements with a purpose-built irradiance sensor and coupled all-sky digital photographs were used to characterize diel skylight irradiance patterns over 24 hours at 79°N in January 2014 and 2015. Subsequent skylight spectral irradiance and in-water optical property measurements were used to model the underwater light field as a function of depth, which was then weighted by the electrophysiologically determined visual spectral sensitivity of a dominant high Arctic zooplankter, Thysanoessa inermis. Irradiance in air ranged between 1–1.5 x 10-5 μmol photons m-2 s-1 (400–700 nm) in clear weather conditions at noon and with the moon below the horizon, hence values reflect only solar illumination. Radiative transfer modelling generated underwater light fields with peak transmission at blue-green wavelengths, with a 465 nm transmission maximum in shallow water shifting to 485 nm with depth. To the eye of a zooplankter, light from the surface to 75 m exhibits a maximum at 485 nm, with longer wavelengths (>600 nm) being of little visual significance. Our data are the first quantitative characterisation, including absolute intensities, spectral composition and photoperiod of biologically relevant solar ambient light in the high Arctic during the polar night, and indicate that some species of Arctic zooplankton are able to detect and utilize ambient light down to 20–30m depth during the Arctic polar night. Text Arctic polar night Zooplankton Thysanoessa inermis PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic PLOS ONE 10 6 e0126247 |
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PubMed Central (PMC) |
op_collection_id |
ftpubmed |
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English |
topic |
Research Article |
spellingShingle |
Research Article Cohen, Jonathan H. Berge, Jørgen Moline, Mark A. Sørensen, Asgeir J. Last, Kim Falk-Petersen, Stig Renaud, Paul E. Leu, Eva S. Grenvald, Julie Cottier, Finlo Cronin, Heather Menze, Sebastian Norgren, Petter Varpe, Øystein Daase, Malin Darnis, Gerald Johnsen, Geir Is Ambient Light during the High Arctic Polar Night Sufficient to Act as a Visual Cue for Zooplankton? |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
The light regime is an ecologically important factor in pelagic habitats, influencing a range of biological processes. However, the availability and importance of light to these processes in high Arctic zooplankton communities during periods of 'complete' darkness (polar night) are poorly studied. Here we characterized the ambient light regime throughout the diel cycle during the high Arctic polar night, and ask whether visual systems of Arctic zooplankton can detect the low levels of irradiance available at this time. To this end, light measurements with a purpose-built irradiance sensor and coupled all-sky digital photographs were used to characterize diel skylight irradiance patterns over 24 hours at 79°N in January 2014 and 2015. Subsequent skylight spectral irradiance and in-water optical property measurements were used to model the underwater light field as a function of depth, which was then weighted by the electrophysiologically determined visual spectral sensitivity of a dominant high Arctic zooplankter, Thysanoessa inermis. Irradiance in air ranged between 1–1.5 x 10-5 μmol photons m-2 s-1 (400–700 nm) in clear weather conditions at noon and with the moon below the horizon, hence values reflect only solar illumination. Radiative transfer modelling generated underwater light fields with peak transmission at blue-green wavelengths, with a 465 nm transmission maximum in shallow water shifting to 485 nm with depth. To the eye of a zooplankter, light from the surface to 75 m exhibits a maximum at 485 nm, with longer wavelengths (>600 nm) being of little visual significance. Our data are the first quantitative characterisation, including absolute intensities, spectral composition and photoperiod of biologically relevant solar ambient light in the high Arctic during the polar night, and indicate that some species of Arctic zooplankton are able to detect and utilize ambient light down to 20–30m depth during the Arctic polar night. |
format |
Text |
author |
Cohen, Jonathan H. Berge, Jørgen Moline, Mark A. Sørensen, Asgeir J. Last, Kim Falk-Petersen, Stig Renaud, Paul E. Leu, Eva S. Grenvald, Julie Cottier, Finlo Cronin, Heather Menze, Sebastian Norgren, Petter Varpe, Øystein Daase, Malin Darnis, Gerald Johnsen, Geir |
author_facet |
Cohen, Jonathan H. Berge, Jørgen Moline, Mark A. Sørensen, Asgeir J. Last, Kim Falk-Petersen, Stig Renaud, Paul E. Leu, Eva S. Grenvald, Julie Cottier, Finlo Cronin, Heather Menze, Sebastian Norgren, Petter Varpe, Øystein Daase, Malin Darnis, Gerald Johnsen, Geir |
author_sort |
Cohen, Jonathan H. |
title |
Is Ambient Light during the High Arctic Polar Night Sufficient to Act as a Visual Cue for Zooplankton? |
title_short |
Is Ambient Light during the High Arctic Polar Night Sufficient to Act as a Visual Cue for Zooplankton? |
title_full |
Is Ambient Light during the High Arctic Polar Night Sufficient to Act as a Visual Cue for Zooplankton? |
title_fullStr |
Is Ambient Light during the High Arctic Polar Night Sufficient to Act as a Visual Cue for Zooplankton? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Is Ambient Light during the High Arctic Polar Night Sufficient to Act as a Visual Cue for Zooplankton? |
title_sort |
is ambient light during the high arctic polar night sufficient to act as a visual cue for zooplankton? |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454649/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26039111 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0126247 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic polar night Zooplankton Thysanoessa inermis |
genre_facet |
Arctic polar night Zooplankton Thysanoessa inermis |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454649/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26039111 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0126247 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication |
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CC0 PDM |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0126247 |
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PLOS ONE |
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10 |
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