The impact of artificial light at night on nocturnal insects: A review and synthesis

Abstract

In recent decades, advances in lighting technology have precipitated exponential increases in night sky brightness worldwide, raising concerns in the scientific community about the impact of artificial light at night (ALAN) on crepuscular and nocturnal biodiversity. Long‐term records show that insect abundance has declined significantly over this time, with worrying implications for terrestrial ecosystems. The majority of investigations into the vulnerability of nocturnal insects to artificial light have focused on the flight‐to‐light behavior exhibited by select insect families. However, ALAN can affect insects in other ways as well. This review proposes five categories of ALAN impact on nocturnal insects, highlighting past research and identifying key knowledge gaps. We conclude with a summary of relevant literature on bioluminescent fireflies, which emphasizes the unique vulnerability of terrestrial light‐based communication systems to artificial illumination. Comprehensive understanding of the ecological impacts of ALAN on diverse nocturnal insect taxa will enable researchers to seek out methods whereby fireflies, moths, and other essential members of the nocturnal ecosystem can coexist with humans on an increasingly urbanized planet.

Assessing the effects of artificial light at night on biodiversity across latitude – Current knowledge gaps

“…Seas and large lakes have been excluded. Individuals, of insects or amphibians for instance, can be attracted or repelled by unusual brightly lit areas (Hailman & Jaeger, 1974;Owens & Lewis, 2018), but more subtle process too can be altered, like colour vision. Original data reused with permission.…”

“…We will only outline the main traits and processes relevant to this article. For more extensive treatment, several review articles and book chapters have been published that can be referred to (Desouhant, Gomes, Mondy, & Amat, 2019;Gaston, Davies, Nedelec, & Holt, 2017;Grubisic, Grunsven, Kyba, Manfrin, & Hölker, 2018;Longcore & Rich, 2004;Owens & Lewis, 2018;Perry, Buchanan, Fisher, Salmon, & Wise, 2008;Rich & Longcore, 2006;Stevens & Zhu, 2015). At the physiological level, ALAN is a major source of circadian disruption that F I G U R E 1 Mean latitudinal distribution of artificial light at night (ALAN) and cloud cover fraction as measured from satellite images (a and c, respectively) and their standard deviations (b, d).…”

“…At the sensory level, the effects of ALAN primarily depend on the spectrum and intensity of ambient light, and the photoreceptor characteristics (Endler, 1990). Individuals, of insects or amphibians for instance, can be attracted or repelled by unusual brightly lit areas (Hailman & Jaeger, 1974;Owens & Lewis, 2018), but more subtle process too can be altered, like colour vision. Dim-light colour vision based on cones in insects and reptiles (Kelber & Roth, 2006), and rods in amphibians (Gomez et al, 2009;Yovanovich et al, 2017) has now been demonstrated.…”

Automated flight interception traps for interval sampling of insects

“…However, in the context of large-scale insect decline, knowledge on how individual environmental drivers act on the populations are needed [8, 9]. One of these drivers, artificial light at night and its mostly negative impacts on insects, has triggered interest among researchers in sampling during defined time intervals (i.e., nights) [10, 11]. While sampling during specific time-intervals is well established for other organisms, e.g.…”

Attractiveness of Arthropodal Hexapod Orders to Light-Emitting Diode and Incandescent Bulb Light Colours

“…and well attracted to artificial light during night time (Owens and Lewis, 2018). These among other factors influences, hexapod feeding behaviour, mate selection, oviposition and navigation (Ouyang et al, 2018).…”