Monday 18 July 2005

Light Pollution and insects

Outside our house , overlooking the adjacent Village Hall car park there is a light. An one-hundred watt lamp, high on a telegraph pole, and last night I noticed dozens of insects flying around it. Since the adjacent land is a mixture of woodland and meadows and organic gardens, this is to be expected. But this is but a single, relatively low powered light. What is the impact of the tens of millions of lights? Street lights line almost every road in every town, suburb and village. While the light in a room attracts moths and other night flying insects. Billions of insects are disoriented. But is it my imagination, or are there any data to support my view that there are significantly fewer insects flying at night? In tons and suburbs, hardly any are to be seen around street lights, and any that are attracted are likely to be swatted by passing cars. And what effect do car headlamps have on insects? Any one who has flown at night will be aware of how much light pollution there is -- from miles and miles away, the streets can be seen . So from what distance can lights draw in insects?

are there any entomolgists reading this blog? If so any pointers to relevant literature would be very welcome. One useful site I found was the following:
http://fwie.fw.vt.edu/jlw/light.htm

It appears that a lot of research has been done, and my initial understanding is that there are potentially very serious problems, but so far there is no coordinate plan of action, or indeed coherent summary of the problem.

2 comments:

  1. You can read more about this subject by going to http://www.lightpollution.org.uk
    Is Light Pollution Killing Our Birds? - by killing off their insect food supply.
    You can learn even more that the 24 hour day, which is the cause of light pollution, is creating permanent daylight. This is destroying the circadian rhythms which control life itself. Maybe the 24 hour day is killing off Life On Earth? One wonders if Sir David Attenborough knows this to be true?

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  2. This is destroying the circadian rhythms which control life itself. Maybe the 24 hour day is killing off Life On Earth? One wonders if Sir David Attenborough knows this to be true?

    ReplyDelete