Feasibility of light-trapping in community research on moths: attraction radius of light, completeness of samples, nightly flight times and seasonality of Southeast-Asian hawkmoths (Lepidoptera:…
By Jan Beck, Eduard K. Linsenmair. The journal of research on the Lepidoptera, 2006
105 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Experimental data and quantitative samples of Sphingid assemblages from tropical Southeast-Asia were analyzed to investigate methodologically relevant topics of light-trapping. MarkRelease-Recapture experiments revealed differences between lepidopteran families in the attraction radius of a light source, but no such differences could be found between 18 species within the family Sphingidae. Attraction radii (for 50% return rate within 5 minutes) were generally below 30 meters, which confirms results from previously published studies. Arrival of Sphingidae individuals at a light source was symmetrically distributed around midnight, and species differed significantly in median arrival time. No evolutionary hypothesis for such flight time differences (such as avoidance of interspecific mating or an effect of body size) could be confirmed from our data. At appropriately chosen sample sites (avoiding dense undergrowth), all-night sampling with a 125 Watt mercuryvapor lamp yielded more than 3⁄4 of the expected species richness of Sphingidae in an average of 5-6 sample nights. Seasonality and temporal changes of local assemblages can probably be neglected for samples from largely non-seasonal regions like Borneo if data stem from a relatively short study time of a few years. In conclusion, (1) there are no indications that light trapping ‘draws’ specimens from distant habitats to the sampling site, (2) we did not find proof that species within the family Sphingidae are differentially drawn to light, which would lead to biases if light-trapping data are used as a measure of relative abundance in the habitat, (3) such biases, on the other hand, probably exist between taxonomically or morphologically more diverse taxa (e.g. for different families), and must be considered for a proper interpretation of results, and (4) light-trapping is an effective means of assessing species composition and relative abundances of Sphingid assemblages in Southeast-Asia, but sampling has to be carried out all night in order to maximize catch size and avoid biases due to different flight times of species.
Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Genetics, Nature and Landscape Conservation
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5e2331a65936b74af9b696577adbbdc8fddc6cae
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Citations in the corpus
- The ‘night shift’: nocturnal pollen‐transport networks in a boreal pine forest (2011, background): “Light traps are widely used to attract nocturnal insects, because they yield large numbers of undamaged specimens with a minimum of effort (Beck & Linsenmair, 2006).”
- Macro‐moth families differ in their attraction to light: implications for light‐trap monitoring programmes (2014, unknown): “Although hand sampling at light may lead to larger samples (Axmacher & Fiedler, 2004; Beck & Linsenmair, 2006), the typically high work load restricts simultaneous sampling at several sites.”
- Attraction to light - from how far do moths (Lepidoptera) return to weak artificial sources of light? (2012, background): “Previous studies (Baker & Sadovy, 1978; Beck & Linsenmair, 2006) indicate that the range of attraction of light traps using 125 W mercury vapour bulbs is small.”