Artificial light at night (ALAN) gets about 10% brighter every year. Light is very important to arthropods (invertebrates like insects and spiders), and arthropods are very important to life on earth. To better understand how ALAN affects arthropods, we deployed 12 multisensor sites across the UBC Farm for five months. At each site, simulated streetlights cycled through white, amber, and control (off) periods. We monitored flying insect activity at each site with Sticky Pi devices, which photograph sticky traps every 20 minutes and automatically identify insects captured, providing insight into which insects arrived when. We also monitored ground-dwelling arthropod activity with pitfall traps.
We hope to learn how ALAN affects the presence of arthropods, how these effects differ across taxa, and how they are influenced by light colour. We also hope to explore the ALAN’s impacts on arthropod circadian rhythm.
We hope our results will help inform efforts to alleviate negative impacts of ALAN on biodiversity. Some potential applications include optimising the colour of new or replacement lights, scheduling part-night lighting, and identifying and conserving dark infrastructure (areas and corridors where artificial light would be especially detrimental to flora and fauna).
This project is a collaboration with Dr. Matthew Mitchell and the CSFS. It is funded by a Campus as a Living Lab (CLL) grant. Check back for future updates regarding the results of this project.
PIEE Lab members associated with this project: Daphne Chevalier, Nisa Chavez, Quentin Geissmann, Juli Carrillo
Keywords: arthropods, insects, ALAN, artificial light, chronobiology
Photo Credit: Daphne Chevalier
Photo Credit: Daphne Chevalier