Artificial lights have become an integral and welcome part of our urban and peri-urban environments. However, recent research has highlighted the potentially negative ecological consequences of ubiquitous artificial light. In particular, insects, especially moths, are expected to be negatively impacted by the presence of artificial lights. Previous research with light traps has shown a male-biased attraction to light in moths. In this study, we sought to determine whether street lights could limit moth dispersal and whether there was any sex bias in attraction to light. More specifically, we aimed to determine sex-specific attraction radii for moths to street lights. We tested these hypotheses by collecting moths for 2 years at an experimental set-up. To estimate the attraction radii, we developed a Markov model and related it to the acquired data. Utilizing multinomial statistics, we found that attraction rates to lights in the middle of the matrix were substantially lower than predicted by the null hypothesis of equal attraction level (0·44 times). With the Markov model, we estimated that a corner light was 2·77 times more attractive than a wing light with an equivalentre attraction radius of c. 23 m around each light. We found neither sexual differences in the attraction rate nor in the attraction radius of males and females. Since we captured three times more males than females, we conclude that sex ratios are representative of operational sex ratios or of different flight activities. These results provide evidence for street lights to limit moth dispersal, and that they seem to act equally on male and female moths. Consequently, public lighting might divide a suitable landscape into many small habitats. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume (i) that public lighting near hedges and bushes or field margins reduces the quality of these important habitat structures and (ii) that public lighting may affect moth movement between patches.

Bioclimate envelope models (BEMs) have often been criticized as being too simplistic due to e.g. not incorporating effects of biotic interactions or evolutionary adaptation. However, BEMs are widely applied and have proven to be often useful. Here we investigate, under which conditions evolution of dispersal, local adaptation or interspecific competition may be of minor importance for forecasting future range shifts. Therefore we use individual‐based simulations of metapopulations under climate change living in spatial temperature gradients. Scenarios incorporate single‐species systems or systems with competing species, respectively. Dispersal rate is evolving and adaptation to local conditions may also evolve in some scenarios. Results show that in single‐species scenarios excluding evolutionary adaptation, species either follow optimal habitat conditions or go extinct if habitat connectivity is too low. These simulations are in close accordance to predictions from BEMs. Including evolutionary adaptation qualitatively changes these results. In the absence of competing species the species either completely invades the world or goes extinct. With competitors, results strongly depend on habitat fragmentation. For highly connected habitats the range border may shift as predicted by BEMs, for intermediate connectivity it will lag behind, while species will go extinct if fragmentation is too high. Our results indicate that (simple) BEMs may work well if habitats are well connected and species will not encounter many difficulties in dispersing to new sites. Selection in this case may promote evolution of even higher dispersal activities. We thus show that the presence of biotic interactions may be ignored for predictions of range shifts when high dispersal can be expected.

Existing models explaining the evolution of sexual dimorphism in the timing of emergence (SDT) in Lepidoptera assume equal mortality rates for males and females. The limiting assumption of equal mortality rates has the consequence that these models are only able to explain the evolution of emergence of males before females, i.e. protandry—the more common temporal sequence of emergence in Lepidoptera. The models fail, however, in providing adaptive explanations for the evolution of protogyny, where females emerge before males, but protogyny is not rare in insects. The assumption of equal mortality rates seems too restrictive for many insects, such as butterflies. To investigate the influence of unequal mortality rates on the evolution of SDT, we present a generalised version of a previously published model where we relax this assumption. We find that longer life-expectancy of females compared to males can indeed favour the evolution of protogyny as a fitness enhancing strategy. Moreover, the encounter rate between females and males and the sex-ratio are two important factors that also influence the evolution of optimal SDT. If considered independently for females and males the predicted strategies can be shown to be evolutionarily stable (ESS). Under the assumption of equal mortality rates the difference between the females’ and males’ ESS remains typically very small. However, female and male ESS may be quite dissimilar if mortality rates are different. This creates the potential for an ‘evolutionary conflict’ between females and males. Bagworm moths (Lepidoptera: Psychidae) provide an exemplary case where life-history attributes are such that protogyny should indeed be the optimal emergence strategy from the males’ and females’ perspectives: (i) Female longevity is considerably larger than that of males, (ii) encounter rates between females and males are presumably low, and (iii) females mate only once. Protogyny is indeed the general mating strategy found in the bagworm family.