Street lamps may negatively impact pollination

Researchers in Switzerland found that pollination is negatively affected by artificial lighting, furthering the belief that the "human footprint can reverberate throughout an ecosystem," according to Nature.

A new study looked at how artificial lighting at night is affecting insects like moths, beetles, and others that spread pollen after dark. To test it, the scientists exposed a plot of cabbage thistle to street lamps, and found that those plots "had 62% fewer visitations from insects than plots situated in darkness." Essentially, lights could be driving away night-time pollinators, which "could lead to less fruit and fewer plants."

On the other hand, Jon Sadler, ecologist and biogeographer at the University of Birmingham, UK, said night-time pollinators being pushed into darker areas due to the lights "might actually enhance pollination in those places."