A group of researchers found that the number of insects in the world is decreasing, and LED street lights may be one of the reasons for this crisis.
There is “increasing evidence” that insect populations have Falling In recent decades, researchers in a new study, Publish In scientific progress, pointed out.
This is very shocking because insect It is an important part of the world’s ecosystem. For example, some of them pollinate our crops and provide products such as silk and honey. Many of them are also important decomposers, and they are also valuable food for many animals in the food web.
According to researchers, night artificial light (ALAN) is “increasingly” considered a threat to ecosystem processes and is also being proposed as a “Drivers of decline In insect populations, because of how it disrupts insect activity.
In their study, the researchers studied the possible effects of night lighting on wild caterpillars in southern England by comparing 26 roadside locations illuminated by street lights with the same number of unlit “almost the same” locations. Report Agence France-Presse. They use caterpillars as “agents” for nocturnal insects because they stay “within a few meters” from where they hatch before they learn to fly, the outlet explained.
The researchers wrote: “We focus on the relatively sedentary life stage (caterpillars), rather than adults, because this allows a clearer understanding of the impact of ALAN on the population level.” “By sampling the larval stage, we Hope to show the impact of insect life and development (not just where they happen to fly).”
Interestingly, the researchers found that compared with unlit locations, street lights “significantly” reduced the number of moth caterpillars in the hedgerow, an astonishing 47% reduction in the number, and a 33% reduction in the number of grass edges.
The lead author of the study, Douglas Boyes of the British Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, told AFP: “We are really shocked by its severity.” “We think the most likely reason is that the females and mothers are not in these areas. spawning.”
Boyes pointed out that they only expect a “modest” drop of 10%.
In a separate experiment, the researchers also found that the caterpillars in the illuminated area were heavier, which indicated that their feeding behavior was disturbed. According to the researchers, this may be due to “unfamiliar conditions” where insects are feeding more to “speed up” their development.
“My explanation for this is that when you have something unknown, an evolutionary response is:’We will develop as soon as possible and get rid of this unknown thing, so everything will be fine.’ So of course this means that the adults will be more Small. They may lay fewer eggs or not fly that far,” Boyes Said According to popular science.
More importantly, they found that compared with the traditional yellow sodium lamp, the effect of LED lighting is more obvious, and it has become more popular due to energy saving. The researchers pointed out that the results were “worrisome” because outdoor lighting switched from traditional lights to white LED lights.
The researchers wrote: “In general, we show how old-fashioned street lights can adversely affect local caterpillar assemblages.” “Although further work is needed to clarify the relative importance of light pollution to insect population reduction (especially with habitat Loss is compared with more general threats such as climate change), but our results show that ALAN is an important driver of moth populations. The local scale has an impact on ecosystem processes including pollination and prey supply.”
Photo: Pixabay
