Imagine yourself on a warm summer night, drawn to the quiet hum of nature that surrounds you. As you sit under a porch light, a silent spectacle begins to unfold. Tiny dancers, flitting and darting around the light, captivate you with their relentless orbits. These six-legged ballet dancers are our familiar night-time companions.
This seemingly mesmerizing display of nature, however, carries with it a fundamental question: Why are flying insects entranced by artificial light?
A team of scientists embarked on an intriguing quest to decipher this nocturnal mystery.
Image Credit: Milkovasa via Shutterstock / HDR tune by Universal-Sci
To find an answer to their question, the team began by tracing the intricate aerial ballet performed by these insects. They employed a groundbreaking technique using high-tech 3D motion-capture systems, allowing them to track and observe the insects' erratic yet precise flight trajectories.
The team meticulously documented and analyzed these patterns and, in doing so, dismissed several long-standing theories that had attempted to explain the phenomenon.
Dismissal of Popular Theories
Do insects use artificial light for navigation? The 3D images showed that the position of the insects relative to the light source was continuously changing, ruling out the possibility of using the light as a point of reference for navigation.
Could heat from the light be the attraction? The artificial light used in the experiments produced minimal heat, discarding this notion.
Were the insects temporarily blinded? The intricate, deliberate patterns of their flight paths suggested otherwise.
Are they attempting to escape the darkness, like fleeing a gloomy cave? The researchers concluded that this wasn't the case either. If the insects were in escape mode, they would have flown directly towards the light, not in orbits around it.
The real reason insects are attracted to artificial light
Having discarded the abovementioned theories, the researchers were able to illuminate a new perspective on the enigmatic attraction. The high-tech 3D images revealed that insects use light to maintain their body orientation during flight.
In the natural environment, insects utilize the glow of the sky to align their bodies upright - a behaviour known as the 'Dorsal Light Response'.
When confronted with artificial light, they become disoriented and spiral into a cycle of continuous self-correction to maintain their posture.
In extreme cases, when the light comes from below, this confusion can lead to uncontrolled collisions or falls.
This theory has been proposed in the past but has never been supported with such compelling visual evidence.
A Ray of Hope for Insect Populations
The consequences of our ever-brightening world on the natural environment and insects are often overlooked. This new understanding of how artificial light affects insects could potentially be a game-changer in our quest to mitigate its impact on declining insect populations.
By comprehending the mechanisms behind their attraction to light, we may be able to design artificial light sources that do not disrupt their natural behaviours.
In a world increasingly encroached upon by human activity, it is critical to understand and minimize our impact on nature's rhythms. This study is a step towards that understanding, shedding light on a curious nocturnal spectacle and offering insights that may help ensure the survival of these fascinating, six-legged dancers of the night.
If you are interested in more details about the research, be sure to check out the paper published in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory/bioRxiv listed below.
Sources and further reading:
Why flying insects gather at artificial light - (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory/bioRxiv)
Too busy to follow science news during the week? - Consider subscribing to our (free) newsletter - (Universal-Sci Weekly) - and get the 5 most interesting science articles of the week in your inbox
FEATURED ARTICLES:
The way you prepare your vegetables affects their nutritional value. What is the healthiest method to prepare them?