Why does bacterial bioluminescence depend on oxygen?

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time-lapse photo of fireflies — Bioluminescence Time-lapse image of fireflies in the Catskill Mountains, New York. Firefly light is a cold light, with approximately 100 percent of the energy given off as light and only a minute amount as heat. Only light in the visible spectrum is emitted.

Bacterial bioluminescence depends on oxygen because it is a fundamental component of the enzymatic oxidation process required to produce light.

In luminescent bacteria, the enzyme luciferase catalyzes a reaction involving reduced flavin mononucleotide (FMNH $_{2}$ ) and molecular oxygen. This reaction forms a long-lived intermediate complex, which subsequently reacts with a long-chain aliphatic aldehyde molecule, such as decanal, to emit light. Without the presence of oxygen to facilitate this oxidation, the chemical pathway necessary to generate the excited state required for photon emission cannot proceed.12