小丑鱼讨厌聚光灯，这可能会害死它们

Clownfish may look like coral reefs' natural entertainers, but they don't like being in the spotlight. It appears their shy nature extends to their hatching, as they won’t even leave their eggs if the lights are too bright. This means coastal developments, often accompanied by a lot of light spilling into coastal waters, could be a menace to clownfish, and quite likely most other forms of reef fish as well.

小丑鱼可能看起来像珊瑚礁的天然表演者，但其实它们不喜欢在聚光灯下。它们害羞的天性似乎延伸到了孵化期，因为如果光线太亮，它们甚至不会孵出壳。这意味着随着沿海地区的发展，大量的灯光进入沿海水域，这可能对小丑鱼造成了威胁，对大多数其他形式的礁鱼也是如此。

It’s well known that coral reefs are under threat from rising temperatures, ocean acidification, overfishing, and runoff from the shores. Dr Emily Fobert of Flinders University wondered if there might be an additional danger we've been missing – light pollution, which she calls ALAN, or Artificial Light At Night.

众所周知，珊瑚礁正受到气温上升、海洋酸化、过度捕捞和海岸径流的威胁。弗林德斯大学的Emily Fobert博士想知道我们是否忽略了一个额外的危险——光污染，也就是晚上的人造光，简称ALAN。

“There is a lot of research on the effects of ALAN on terrestrial organisms,” Fobert told IFLScience, “but very little looking at the impact on the marine environment. I found that surprising because fish are not immune to exposure to light.” Fobert is aware of two studies on the effects of ALAN on fish, but both are on behavior such as foraging, not reproduction.

“关于人造光对陆地生物的影响做了很多研究，”Fobert表示，“但是很少有人关注它对海洋环境的影响，当我发现鱼对光线没有免疫力时非常惊讶。”Fobert之前注意到两项关于人造光对鱼的影响的研究，但都是关于觅食等行为，而不是繁殖。

Fobert decided to test clownfish because “they are site-specific. If they have settled in one location and they are exposed to light, they will not move away.”

于是福伯特决定拿小丑鱼做实验对象，因为“它们是有地点特性的，一旦它们定居到了一个地方，有光照，它们就不会离开。”

When Fobert shone 21 lux onto the surface of the waters beneath which clownfish were living, she found none of their eggs hatched. However, a batch in the same conditions, light exposure aside, hatched normally, she reported in Biology Letters. Fobert told IFLScience it is common for lights on piers to shine 200 lux of light onto the waters below them and 21 is a conservative estimate of the exposure reefs close to tourist establishments can be exposed to.

当Fobert将21lux的光照射到小丑鱼生活的水面上时，她发现小丑鱼的蛋一个也没有孵出来。然而，根据她在《生物学快报》上的报道，不考虑光照的情况，在同样的条件下，有一批卵正常孵化。Fobert表示，码头上200lux的灯光通常会照射到桥下的水域，保守估计，至少有21lux的光可以照射到靠近旅游景点的礁石上。

With sufficient awareness of the problem, this may be a much easier problem to solve than many of the other threats coral reefs face. Fobert’s work was done with relatively blueish LED lights, which penetrate the water more than longer wavelengths. She’s currently doing a follow-up study using warmer-colored sources, but does not yet have the results to see how much it helps. However, she noted that on land, the effects on many species can be minimized by changing wavelengths.

如果对这个问题有了足够的认识，那么珊瑚礁所面临的众多威胁中，解决这个问题就变得更加容易。Fobert测试时使用的是相对偏蓝的LED灯，这种灯穿透海水的波长比较长。她正在使用暖色光源进行后续研究，看看情况会有多大的改善,但目前还没有结果。然而，她指出，通过改变波长，对陆地上物种的影响可以最小化。

Other alternatives include switching off coastal lights for a few nights a month or several hours a night. Fobert is hopeful on the latter, noting that many reef fish hatch a few hours after sunset and therefore might not need a whole night of darkness to leave their shell.

她还提出了其他几个改善方案，比如每月几个晚上或每晚几个小时关掉沿海的灯光。Fobert对后者极力推荐，因为许多暗礁鱼在日落几小时后开始孵化，因此不需要一整晚的黑暗来帮它们孵出。

One way or another, we’ll probably need to make some changes if we want to keep finding Nemo close to holiday sites.

不管怎样，如果我们想在假日景点附近找到Nemo，我们可能需要做出一些改变。