Color polarization vision mediates the strength of an evolutionary trap

Evolutionary traps are scenarios in which animals are fooled by rapidly changing conditions into preferring poor-quality resources over those that better improve survival and reproductive success. The maladaptive attraction of aquatic insects to artificial sources of horizontally polarized light (e.g. glass buildings, asphalt roads) has become a first model system by which scientists can investigate the behavioral mechanisms that cause traps to occur. We employ this field-based system to experimentally investigate 1) in which portion(s) of the spectrum are polarizationally water-imitating reflectors attractive to nocturnal terrestrial and aquatics insects, and 2) which modern lamp types result in greater attraction in this typical kind of nocturnal polarized light pollution. We found that most aquatic taxa exhibited preferences for lamps based upon their color spectra, most having lowest preference for lamps emitting blue and red light. Yet despite previously established preference for ...