Temperature, not net primary productivity, drives continental-scale variation in insect flight activity

Tielens, Elske K; Kelly, Jeff

doi:10.1098/rstb.2023.0114

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…[ 62 ] use a European network of small-scale radars to exemplarily investigate diel activity patterns of insects. On a yet larger spatial scale, Tielens & Kelly [ 63 ] use the network of weather-radars in the contiguous USA to identify a latitudinal gradient in insect flight activity, and its variation across biomes.…”

Section: The Contributions To Four Technological Approaches In This T...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring

van Klink,

Sheard,

Høye

et al. 2024

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Insects are the most diverse group of animals on Earth, yet our knowledge of their diversity, ecology and population trends remains abysmally poor. Four major technological approaches are coming to fruition for use in insect monitoring and ecological research—molecular methods, computer vision, autonomous acoustic monitoring and radar-based remote sensing—each of which has seen major advances over the past years. Together, they have the potential to revolutionize insect ecology, and to make all-taxa, fine-grained insect monitoring feasible across the globe. So far, advances within and among technologies have largely taken place in isolation, and parallel efforts among projects have led to redundancy and a methodological sprawl; yet, given the commonalities in their goals and approaches, increased collaboration among projects and integration across technologies could provide unprecedented improvements in taxonomic and spatio-temporal resolution and coverage. This theme issue showcases recent developments and state-of-the-art applications of these technologies, and outlines the way forward regarding data processing, cost-effectiveness, meaningful trend analysis, technological integration and open data requirements. Together, these papers set the stage for the future of automated insect monitoring. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring’.

show abstract

Section: The Contributions To Four Technological Approaches In This T...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring

van Klink,

Sheard,

Høye

et al. 2024

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…45 million individuals with 30.2 metric tons of biomass within a 175 km radius of the Las Vegas radar [ 38 ]. In the contiguous USA, weather radar data have recently provided continental scale estimates of insect density, indicating that continental scale temperature drives variation in aerial insect density across biomes [ 55 ].…”

Section: Current State Of Radar-based Biodiversity Monitoring Of Insectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring aerial insect biodiversity: a radar perspective

Bauer,

Tielens,

Haest

2024

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the current biodiversity crisis, populations of many species have alarmingly declined, and insects are no exception to this general trend. Biodiversity monitoring has become an essential asset to detect biodiversity change but remains patchy and challenging for organisms that are small, inconspicuous or make (nocturnal) long-distance movements. Radars are powerful remote-sensing tools that can provide detailed information on intensity, timing, altitude and spatial scale of aerial movements and might therefore be particularly suited for monitoring aerial insects and their movements. Importantly, they can contribute to several essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) within a harmonized observation system. We review existing research using small-scale biological and weather surveillance radars for insect monitoring and outline how the derived measures and quantities can contribute to the EBVs ‘species population’, ‘species traits’, ‘community composition’ and ‘ecosystem function’. Furthermore, we synthesize how ongoing and future methodological, analytical and technological advancements will greatly expand the use of radar for insect biodiversity monitoring and beyond. Owing to their long-term and regional-to-large-scale deployment, radar-based approaches can be a powerful asset in the biodiversity monitoring toolbox whose potential has yet to be fully tapped. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring’.

show abstract

“…As radars are most sensitive to targets that are comparable in size to their wavelength, radar instruments operating at lower wavelengths are likely more useful for the detection of aerial insects (Drake et al 2017). S-band, and more rarely also C-Band (Mäkinen et al 2022), weather radars have been shown useful to study high-density insect movements (Tielens and Kelly 2024), including specific events like mayfly emergences (Stepanian et al 2020, Kwakye et al 2023). X-Band radars have repeatedly been shown useful to study larger individual insects (Chapman et al 2011, Hu et al 2016, Gao et al 2020, Haest et al 2024b, Bauer et al 2024), but mostly miss insects with smaller radar cross sections (Riley 1985), which, in fact, are often more abundant.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Derivation of aerial insect concentration with a 94 GHz FMCW cloud radar

Lochmann,

Kalesse-Los,

Haest

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aerial insects are vital for nature and society. Though methods to observe flying insects have consistently improved in the last decades, insects remain difficult to monitor systematically and consistently over large spatial and temporal scales. Remote sensing with radars has proved to be one of the more effective tools for observation. However, as radars are most sensitive to targets similar in size to the radar wavelength, the detectable sub-group of aerial insects of a certain size range depends on the employed radar. Here, we present a novel method based on data of a zenith-pointing W-band (94 GHz, lambda = 0.32 cm) Doppler cloud radar to estimate insect concentration in a vertical profile. Multiple meteorological state-of-the-art algorithms are combined to extract insect signals from the radar data and quantify their abundance from 50m to 1000m above the ground. For evaluation, this method is applied to Doppler cloud radar data from a summertime 30 day observation period in central Germany. Results are compared to data from an X-band (9.4 GHz, lambda = 3.2 cm) radar in the same region. Aerial insect concentration derived from the W-band radar, which is sensitive to insects in the mm size range, is substantially higher than from the X-band radar, detecting insects in the cm size range. In addition, diel flight timings vary between the different sub-groups of aerial insects observed by the two radar instruments. With its superior sensitivity to smaller insects like aphids, the proposed methodology complements existing entomological radar techniques and contributes to achieving a more complete description of aerial insect activity.

show abstract

Temperature, not net primary productivity, drives continental-scale variation in insect flight activity

Cited by 4 publications

References 54 publications

Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring

Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring

Monitoring aerial insect biodiversity: a radar perspective

Derivation of aerial insect concentration with a 94 GHz FMCW cloud radar

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About