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，目前正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, LEDs）应用最为广泛。这类白光照明通常能耗更低，因此被视作“环保型”照明。但目前学界极少关注此类白光照明对当地野生动物种群可能造成的影响。
2. 本研究借助便携式路灯设备与定制化飞行拦截诱捕器，开展了昆虫趋光性对照实验，比较了橙色光源（高压钠灯，high-pressure sodium, HPS）与白光光源（金属卤化物灯，metal halide, MH及发光二极管灯）对昆虫的吸引效果。
3. 实验结果显示，相较于色温4250开尔文的发光二极管灯与高压钠灯，金属卤化物路灯对昆虫的吸引量显著更高（高出5倍以上）。对于绝大多数捕获的昆虫类群而言，发光二极管灯与高压钠灯的诱捕数量并无统计学差异。不过稀疏分析结果表明，发光二极管灯捕获的昆虫类群多样性高于高压钠灯。
4. 政策启示。当前全球正大规模推进白光发光二极管照明改造，本研究结果可为理解路灯技术更迭如何影响野生动物种群与群落提供参考。研究建议避免布设金属卤化物灯，因其相较其他同类照明技术会吸引更多昆虫。同时，本研究强调需对LED照明进行定制化设计，以规避其对多类昆虫类群造成的生态干扰。2017年8月7日