Ultraviolet polarized light pollution responses by aquatic insects

This dataset contains data from a field-based experiment described in the paper: "Fraleigh, D., Barratt Heitman, J., Robertson, B.A. (2021) Ultraviolet polarized light pollution and evolutionary traps for aquatic insects. Animal Behaviour. October." The experiment investigates the ability of different families of aquatic insects to detect and move toward sources of ultraviolet polarized light. The experiment conducted adjacent to the Saw Kill River in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY and wild emergent aquatic insects were simultaneously exposed to five lighting treatments: 1) polarized visible wavelengths of light , 2) polarized visible and polarized ultraviolet light, 3) unpolarized visible light, 4) polarized ultraviolet light and unpolarized visible light, and 5) unpolarized visible and ultraviolet light. Insects attracted to a light source reflecting from a oil-filled tray would touch down upon the oil and become trapped. The main results of the experiments was that one family of aquatic insects seems to have the ability to see ultraviolet polarized light and use it as a nocturnal cue to the location of water bodies, while terrestrial insects showed no indication of responses to any type of polarized light.