Data from: Quantifying the attractiveness of broad-spectrum street lights to aerial nocturnal insects

1. Sodium street lights, dominated by long wavelengths of light, are being replaced by broad-spectrum, white lights globally, in particular light-emitting diodes (LEDs). These white lights typically require less energy to operate and are therefore considered ‘eco-friendly’. However, little attention has been paid to the impacts white lights may have upon local wildlife populations.
2. We compared insect attraction to orange (high-pressure sodium [HPS]) and white (metal halide [MH] and LED) street lights experimentally using portable street lights and custom-made flight-intercept traps.
3. Significantly more (>five times as many) insects were attracted to white MH street lights than white (4,250 K) LED and HPS lights. There was no statistical difference in the numbers of insects attracted to LED and HPS lights for most taxa caught. However, rarefaction shows a greater diversity of insects caught at LED than HPS lights.
4. Policy implications. With the current, large-scale conversion to white light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, our results give insight into how changes to street light technology may affect wildlife populations and communities. We recommend avoiding metal halide (MH) light installations as they attract many more insects than competing technologies. We highlight the need to tailor LED lighting to prevent disturbances across multiple insect taxa. 07-Aug-2017

1. 以长波长光为主的钠灯（Sodium street lights）目前正逐步在全球范围内被广谱白光照明取代，其中尤以发光二极管（light-emitting diodes, LED）照明最为普遍。此类白光照明通常运行能耗更低，因此被视作“环保友好型”照明。然而，目前鲜有研究关注此类白光照明对当地野生动物种群的潜在影响。
2. 本研究借助便携式路灯与定制化飞行拦截捕虫器（flight-intercept traps）开展对照实验，比较了橙色光高压钠灯（high-pressure sodium, HPS）与白光金属卤化物灯（metal halide, MH）、LED路灯对昆虫的诱集效果。
3. 实验结果显示，白光金属卤化物（MH）路灯的昆虫诱集量显著高于4250K白光LED路灯与高压钠灯（HPS），可达后者的5倍以上。对于绝大多数捕获的昆虫类群（taxa）而言，LED路灯与高压钠灯的诱集昆虫数量并无统计学差异。但稀疏分析（rarefaction）表明，LED路灯捕获的昆虫类群多样性高于高压钠灯。
4. 政策启示：随着当前全球范围内大规模向白光发光二极管（LED）照明转型，本研究结果可为路灯技术更迭对野生动物种群及群落的影响提供理论参考。研究团队建议避免采用金属卤化物（MH）照明装置，因其相较于其他同类照明技术会诱集更多昆虫。同时，本研究强调需对LED照明进行定制化优化，以避免其对多类昆虫类群造成生态干扰。2017年8月7日