From the University of Exeter , some buggy science. Next thing you know, PETA will be campaigning to have us shut off street lighting to “save the insects”. I’m surprised it has taken them this long to figure out that bugs like street lights. Perhaps like moths drawn to a flame, these scientists were drawn to a grant to study this. The results are another “could may, might” effect on the entire food chain. Something MUST be done. /sarc
Street lighting is transforming communities of insects and other invertebrates, according to research by the University of Exeter. Published today (23 May 2012) in the journal Biology Letters, the study shows for the first time that the balance of different species living together is being radically altered as a result of light pollution in our towns and cities.
Believed to be increasing by six per cent a year globally, artificial lighting is already known to affect individual organisms, but this is the first time that its impact on whole communities has been investigated.
This study shows that groups of invertebrates living near to artificial lights include more predators and scavengers. This could be impacting on the survival rates of different species, having a knock-on effect on birds and mammals that rely on these species for food. The effects could be affecting entire ecosystems and even humans.
The research team based their study in the market town of Helston in West Cornwall. They placed pitfall traps directly under and between street lamps that were 35 metres apart for a number of days and nights. This allowed them to compare, not only results for day and night, but also differences between areas under and away from street lights.
They collected 1,194 individuals covering 60 species. They discovered that total numbers were more abundant under street lights, where they also found more predatory and scavenging species, such as ground beetles and harvestmen. This was the case during the day, as well as at night, suggesting that the effect on communities is ongoing.
Lead author Dr Tom Davies of the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter’s Cornwall Campus said: “Our study shows that light pollution could be having a dramatic effect on wildlife in our towns and cities. We need to be aware of how the increase in artificial lighting is impacting on the delicate ecosystems on which we all rely. Our research shows, for the first time, the changes that light pollution is making to entire communities of invertebrates. We now need to examine what impact this is having on other communities and how this may be affecting important ecosystem services and whether we should change the way we light urban spaces.”
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In the UK we have had street lighting since Victorian times. Over that time no insect has suffered and those that predate insects are still with us. No change there then.
Do these researchers ever take a drive out to the country?
“We now need to examine what impact this is having on other
communities and how this may be affecting important ecosystem
services and whether we should change the way we light urban spaces.”
Which, translated to normal English is, “We need more funding.”
and
“Believed to be increasing by six per cent a year globally”…
Great. Now the bugs have models. From hockey stick
to fly swatter…
Shouldn’t that be PETI (People for the Ethical Treatment of Insects)?
I find this interesting, but it is so vague. What would be concerning is if they could show that street lighting has had negative effects on animals that hunt insects in the dark, including perhaps bats. Worth further study… maybe they could get some more grant money by claiming it has something to do with global warming.
Yet another demonstration that the need for academics to publish produces an increase in invertibrate editors.
Written as if the man from Exeter actually IS a part of the food chain? As if we RELY on the invertebrates in our towns and cities? Rely? I’m thinking his hunting and gathering likely includes merely Tesco’s …..? 😀
“…Our study shows that light pollution could be having a dramatic effect on wildlife in our towns and cities. We need to be aware of how the increase in artificial lighting is impacting on the delicate ecosystems on which we all rely…”
Maybe they can get a grant to do the same study in North Korea.
Anybody who’s seen the satellite shots of North Korea at nighttime knows what I’m talking about.
“We now need to examine the impact on ….”
Translation: this should get me a few more easy pubs, maybe a Nature article if I make it scary enufff and link to “Climate Change”, and allow me to renew my grant so I can produce even more Biology PhD’s w/o jobs.
“Could” this…. “could” that… “may” the other… Truly fed up with grants being given out for utter nonsense as this. I’m voting UKIP at the next election, they are the only party with sensible policies on energy.
Somebody paid for this? Haven’t these folks sat out on their porch at night with the light on? If there ever was a study of something drop-dead obvious, this is it.
I recall lying awake in bed in Kampala in the 80’s and hearing what sounded like a group of passing students on their way home from a party. Giggling and chatting, they were audible about the shrill of the night. But instead of carrying on down the road to Seven Mile Hill the party continued, hour after hour. What on earth was going on, I wondered.
In the morning my host Tom Gossen told me that the reason they didn’t move on was that nightly under each streetlight a group staked out a claim to the insects available and captured them throughout the night. I saw the critters for sale, roasted, at the market in the morning – 10 Ugandan ‘Shillingis’ each.
They were catching what appeared to be a type ‘katydid’. I am sure there are lots of edible bugs. Katydids are predators. This rather contradicts the study above: If the lights draw more predators, and the top predators is Man, then the lights are helping to reduce the number of predators, not prey – at least in some countries.
Hmm…. predators being eaten by top predators…. sounds suspiciously similar to the universe where Emperor Bokassa lived (dubbed the Central African Empire at that time) – he of ‘give a huge diamond to a French President’ fame. My lawyer friend in Bangui said his primary and immediate task when contacted by powerful clients was to spring them from the Central Prison before a certain top predator put out their lights and they found themselves, like those Kampala critters, deep-fried in oil. No kidding. My friend’s cook knew the top predator’s cook and you do not want to know the details.
The darkness of ignorance is on rare occasion preferable to the Light of Knowledge.
Lucky for all these ‘delicate ecosystems’, that have endured everything nature has thrown at them, that these academics have arrived just in time to save them. If cockroaches can survive a nuclear war, aren’t a few streetlights a bit of a joke?
Eh, and God said, let there be light pollution: and there was light pollution. And God saw the light pollution, that it was good: and God diuided the light pollution from the abominable purity of darkenesse.
Obviously we need to study the sun as well, since its presence dramatically affects the movements of insects. We need to make sure the sun always shines exactly the same hours every day of the year in every place. No more seasons, no more clouds. Protect bugs against all unpredictable exigencies!
Next the animal police will want us to stop using insect repellant because it may deprive those lovable mosquitoes from an important food source.
If this is true then, so what?
Are we meant to abolish evolution?
How would living in darkness achieve that anyway?
Having said that, there are plenty of good reasons to think about whether lights need to be left on all the time. I’m just not sure that unpredictable microfauna changes is one of the best.
Perhaps he overstates the results of his research a bit. However I do have a solution. Use more bug spray, particularly near lights. Personally I have a bug zapper, not because they are more efficient, they aren’t. A well directed cloud of poison is also more dramatic. It is that every time I hear that zap-sizzle noise I enjoy a frission , the thrill of victory, technology over nature. It is just so damn satisfying.
1) Ecosystems are not as delicate as they think. Of course, it does not serve their goals to admit so.
2) How about the ecosystems deal with us for a change? We are as natural as they are, only doing natural things.
3) Ecosystems are not static, they are always changing. Let them change. Who are they to say that some endangered species is not preserved by the advent of street lights? The reputed species extinctions caused by tiny changes in global temperatures are all theoretical. They postulate how many species that go extinct before we ever detect them—it’s fantasy “science.”
4) There is no aspect of our activities that does not have effects locally. Are we supposed to avoid ALL effects? It’s simply impossible. Stepping outside in the morning has an impact. All houses occupy land that cannot be used by a chipmunk to burrow a home or trees that can harbor birds. The hand-wringers would have us all disappear to save the environment from us. How about saving us from the idiot environmentalists?
5) It is the species that endear themselves to us that are the winners. At the moment, our entire planet is at risk, with all of its eggs in one basket. We need to colonize other planets or moons to reduce the chance of being wiped out by a single asteroid collision. Those animals that endear themselves to us, such that we take them with us, are the real winners here. The other species remain at peril and probably are due for extinction eventually anyhow. They have not stepped up and made themselves useful. That’s poor planning on their part.
So then, is North Korea practically bug free?
Come to think of it, winter is the most unproductive aspect of our world. We HAVE to do something about it. Think of the stress it puts on ecosystems of all kinds. Why have we let this go on for so long? Think of all of the death and destruction that it causes. If they think we can control the weather and climate, then we should be able to alter the seasons. Let’s get to it!
The effect is likely to be local and no different to an African waterhole except in scale.
Yes, light navigating insects, confusing the lamp with the moon will fly around in circles until exhuasted, they fall to the ground.
Yes, predatory and scavenging insects will exploit the opportunity and clean up.
Yes, there will be local abundance above the average density for the area.
I’m sure that they’ve found an effect. I’d be surprised if they didn’t.
I’ll bet they discovered a Lagrange point between the streetlamps!
What worries me is their progression from what they’ve observed to what they’ve inferred.
There needs to be a much more robust support in their discussion of the move from the particular to the general.
Here is an emperical observation for you all. I have LED, Curly CFL’s of different color temps, and plain old tungsten filament light bulbs in outdoor lights.
The LED consistently has the fewest flying critters around it, while the CFL’s have clouds of insects. The old tungsten also receives a great deal of attention.
I’ve installed LED’s with different color temps (wavelengths) and some receive slightly more attention than others, but overall attract flying insects far less than any other lighting.
Anthony, small one …in title “evironment” >>>environment?
REPLY: Fixed thanks, A
“We need to be aware of how the increase in artificial lighting is impacting on the delicate ecosystems on which we all rely.”
I don’t know about you, but I tend to rely an awful lot on artificial lighting, and not so much on the ecosystem of insects in and around the neighborhood. And what is it with this ‘delicate’ classification? Insects appear to be some of the most robust and adaptable life forms on a planet filled with robust and adaptable life forms. We can not get rid their ‘delicate ecosystem’ even when we try!
Academics and environmentalists have fallen in love with a biosphere that only existed for a brief time before the industrial revolution. This arbitrary selection of a ‘correct’ biosphere is not only scientifically ridiculous, but environmentally damaging.
These are the same people who use the theory of evolution as a litmus test for scientific literacy. You remember evolution: survival of the fittest, adaptability and all that jazz? But now, evolution is apparently a bad thing. Change is not supposed to happen and the survival of the weakest has become the noble cause of the modern environment movement.
Change is the life-blood of evolution and the enemy of modern environmentalists. Change is the only constant in the biosphere. Change is natural. Preventing change is unnatural. What does that tell you about the environmental movement?