Light pollution affects body mass and age of the first mating of domestic male birds (study model: Domestic Pigeon)

Urbanization around the world is accompanied by a new and growing phenomenon called artificial light at night or light pollution. Because this pollution disrupts the natural light-dark cycle of the earth, it has many behavioral and physiological effects on living organisms and is a potential threat to biodiversity. We tried to find out the effects of this pollution on male birds by disrupting the dark-light cycle of the domestic pigeon (Columba livia domestica). The birds were divided into control and lighting groups. In the light group, birds were exposed to artificial light at night from the time of mating until determining the sex of chickens and reaching the age of first mating. In addition to examining the age of the first mating and body mass, some growth-related traits were also measured. Comparing the mean of the studied traits in the two groups using an independent t-test, we found that the increase in body mass in male chickens exposed to artificial light at night until the end of adulthood was always less than in the control group, male chickens in the light group much faster than Male chicks in the dark group reached the age of first mating, but no significant differences were observed in the traits of nesting age, flight age, wing length, tip length, and tarsus length. This study demonstrates the importance of biological cycles in birds and we hope that will be a reason for further studies on light pollution, which is one of the reasons for the disruption of these cycles.