Data from: The interface of ecological novelty and behavioral context in the formation of ecological traps

Ecological traps occur when rapid environmental change causes animals to actually prefer inferior habitats. Traps increase the likelihood of species extinction, but our understanding of how evolved behavioral algorithms interface with increasingly novel ecosystems to trigger them remains limited. Both polarized and unpolarized light are increasingly common forms of light pollution known to cause maladaptive behavior for both water-seeking and entirely terrestrial insects by maladaptively triggering innate habitat selection and navigation preferences, respectively. We designed a nocturnal, field-based experiment to investigate how diverse nocturnal insect taxa use and contextualize these cues when they are placed in evolutionarily novel proximity, and so test the hypothesis that cues that originally evolved to guide navigation behavior can enhance or hinder the ability of different nocturnal insects to avoid maladaptive behavior within the context of habitat selection. Unpolarized light created more attractive ecological traps, even for aquatic taxa known to use polarized light as their sole habitat selection cue. We found that these cues could, in aquatic taxa, act both additively and synergistically to increase the attraction of ecological traps. While one family showed evidence of partitioning their response to these 2 forms of light within their respective behavioral contexts (navigation, habitat selection), our results indicate that the novel proximity of cues from separate behavioral contexts can act to enhance the attractiveness of ecological traps within a focal context.生态陷阱（Ecological Trap）指当环境发生快速变化时，动物反而偏好劣质栖息地的现象。此类陷阱会提升物种灭绝风险，但目前学界对于进化形成的行为算法如何与日益新颖的生态系统交互并触发生态陷阱的机制，仍缺乏充分认知。偏振光（polarized light）与非偏振光（unpolarized light）均为日益普遍的光污染形式，已知二者会分别通过异常触发先天栖息地选择偏好与导航偏好，引发趋水昆虫和纯陆生昆虫的适应不良行为。本研究设计了一项夜间野外实验，旨在探究当两类光信号处于进化意义上全新的近距离环境中时，多样的夜行性昆虫类群如何利用并结合这些信号；借此验证假说：原本为引导导航行为而进化的光信号，会在栖息地选择的场景下，增强或阻碍不同夜行性昆虫规避适应不良行为的能力。即便对于以偏振光作为唯一栖息地选择信号的水生昆虫类群，非偏振光也能形成吸引力更强的生态陷阱。研究发现，对于水生昆虫类群，这两类光信号可通过加性效应与协同效应共同提升生态陷阱的吸引力。尽管有一个昆虫科类群表现出在各自行为场景（导航、栖息地选择）中对两类光信号做出差异化响应的证据，但本研究结果表明，来自不同行为场景的光信号处于全新近距离环境时，会在目标行为场景中增强生态陷阱的吸引力。