Attraction to light - from how far do moths (Lepidoptera) return to weak artificial sources of light?

By Christine Truxa, K. Fiedler. 2012

170 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Moths are frequently used as indicators of biodiversity or habitat quality. Light traps are the most effective and widely used method for gathering data on moth communities. Knowing the distance from which moths are drawn to a light trap is therefore essential for the ecological interpretation of such data. Two community-wide mark-release-recapture experiments were carried out in forest habitats in central Europe in order to investigate whether the percentage of marked moths recaptured at weak artificial light sources (2 × 15 W UV-light tubes) is dependent on the distance they were released from the light source. Altogether 2,331 moths belonging to 167 species were caught at light traps and released at distances of 2-100 m. Of these moths 313 returned to the light trap within 5 min of release. Percentage recapture was generally low (gross rate 13.4%) and strongly decreased with increase in the distance at which they were released. Percentage recapture was not significantly affected by ambient temperature or the sex of the moths. Only for the Geometroidea was the percentage recaptured slightly greater for the larger species. We found no significant dif- ferences between moth super-families with regard to the distance dependence of their attraction to light. Our data confirm that the radius of attraction of low powered light traps for moths is very small often even below 10 m. Thus, moths are good indicators of habitat quality and fragmentation as they are rarely attracted from distant habitats to such light traps.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/115796ed2e1e0c84044346eee3cee22bcbe54352

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Citations in the corpus

Diversity and trait composition of moths respond to land-use intensification in grasslands: generalists replace specialists (2017, background): “2012), because the distance by which moths are attracted to light traps is up to 30 meters (Merckx and Slade 2014; Truxa and Fiedler 2012).”
Macro‐moth families differ in their attraction to light: implications for light‐trap monitoring programmes (2014, unknown): “Implications for a global light-trap monitoring programme The local sampling ranges and low capture rates of low-wattage light traps make them excellent tools to monitor macro-moth communities in well-defined habitats (see also Truxa & Fiedler, 2012).”
Is light pollution driving moth population declines? A review of causal mechanisms across the life cycle (2020, background): “…& Slade, 2014), while a similar study using 15 w actinic lamps reported most recaptures occurred at release distances 30 m, and typically 10 m (Truxa & Fiedler, 2012) and another study found that only 25% of moths released 2 m from a 6 w actinic light were recaptured by the trap (van…”
Artificial light at night inhibits mating in a Geometrid moth (2015, background): “…diverse, largely nocturnal species group, that are known to be attracted to sources of artificial light at night (Van Langevelde et al., 2011; Truxa & Fiedler, 2012; Somers-Yeates Correspondence: Koert G. van Geffen, Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology Group, Wageningen University,…”