Feb. 18, 2004

The Receding Night

The Receding Night: The Effect of Artificial Light on the Migration Pattern of Daphnia
Dana Feeny, 12, Woodside, Calif.
Finalist, Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge, 2003

Project background: Inspired by an article she read in Science News about the effects of light pollution on animals (see Deprived of Darkness), Dana decided to see how light pollution affected Daphnia—a miniscule crustacean that lives in ponds and lakes. Daphnia are sometimes known as water fleas.

V. Miller

Tactics and results: Dana tracked the migration habits of Daphnia in a controlled, test-tube environment during both daytime and nighttime hours without any kind of artificial light. She did the same thing using a simulated pond environment and by taking samples from varying depths from an actual pond. Once she had established the natural migration pattern of Daphnia, Dana repeated the same experiments introducing three kinds of artificial light: halogen, fluorescent, and incandescent lighting.

Dana found that Daphnia were in fact attracted to artificial light, which directly impacted the animals’ migration habits.

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