Effect of Artificial Light at Night
Project Leads
Dr. Juli Carrillo, Assistant Professor, Applied Biology, Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Dr. Matthew Mitchell, Research Associate, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Dr. Quentin Geissmann, Assistant Professor, Centre for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics, University of Aarhus
Carly McGregor, Lab Manager, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Daphne Chevalier, MSc Student
Funding
Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm; UBC Faculty of Land and Food Systems
About the Project
Insects bear tremendous ecological and agricultural importance. Urbanisation, industrialised agriculture, and other anthropogenic phenomena have introduced many drastic and potentially destructive changes to insects’ environments. One of these changes is the increased use and intensity of artificial light, especially as inexpensive and efficient LEDs have become ubiquitous. Some studies have hypothesised that artificial light at night (ALAN) is a major driver of declines in several key insect species. In practice, lights exert a powerful attractive force on some insects that can interfere with their navigation and behaviour. Additionally, authors have reported higher insect predation by bats around artificial lights. Research on ALAN has historically overlooked its effects on insects’ daily patterns of activity and how impacts might reverberate through ecosystems.
We aim to illuminate these gaps by installing 12 simulated streetlights in UBC Farm hedgerows, then simultaneously monitoring insect and bat activity. Each light will cycle through one five-day period of lights on at night followed by one five-day period of lights off. Between intervals, every light will alternate between white and amber settings, the latter being supposedly less harmful to insects. We will monitor three types of organisms near each light: flying insects (using smart insect traps), ground-dwelling arthropods (using pitfall traps), and bats (using ultrasonic recorders).
By using smart traps capable of high-frequency sampling, we hope to gain insight into the effects of ALAN on the circadian rhythms of flying insects, especially crepuscular species. We intend to characterise the consequences of ALAN across trophic levels by measuring concurrent activity levels in ground-dwelling arthropod communities and bats.
External Links
Plant-Insect Ecology & Evolution Lab
Banner Photo credit: NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC