Scotobiology

Some of this work has been going on for over a century, and lays the foundation for understanding the importance of dark night skies, not only for humans but for all biological species.

The great majority of biological systems have evolved in a world of alternating day and night and have become irrevocably adapted to and dependent on the daily and seasonally changing patterns of light and darkness.

Scotobiology studies the positive responses of biological systems to the presence of darkness, and not merely the negative effects caused by the absence of light.

Such activities include foraging, breeding and social behavior in higher animals, amphibians, and insects, which are all affected in various ways if light pollution occurs in their environment.

It is thus most important in any scotobiological study to determine the threshold level of light that may be required to interfere with or negate the normal pattern of dark-night activity.

The word is derived from the Greek scotos, σκότος, "dark," and relates to photobiology, which describes the biological effects of light (φῶς, phos; root: φωτ-, phot-).