With some home security software and a little ingenuity, researchers have developed an inexpensive device that will allow them to study the behavior and activity of insects in regions of the world where they’re most diverse.
Insects are easily the largest group of organisms on the planet, and with species inhabiting every continent, including Antarctica, they’re also ubiquitous. Yet compared to birds and mammals, scientists know very little about when most insects are awake and active, which is especially true of nocturnal species that fly under the obscuring veil of darkness.
«Most of what we know regarding insect behavior is from species that are active during the day,» said Akito Kawahara, curator of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the Florida Museum of Natural History and co-author of a new study describing the device. «We study butterflies, bees and ants because we can see them, but there are hundreds of thousands of nocturnal insects out there, all of which have been nearly impossible to track until now.»
Knowing when organisms are most active is the foundation for understanding their behaviors and circadian rhythms — patterns that determine when they look for food, reproduce, pollinate flowers and more. Without this basic information for insects, it’s harder to predict or determine how changes in the environment, like an increase in light pollution, might impact them.
But the tinier the animal, the harder it is to track. Insects are generally too small to carry around tracking devices that would cue in biologists to their movements. Instead, researchers have to lure them in with baits or lights, which only paint a partial picture of their activity.
«You might think a moth is nocturnal because it’s only been seen at night, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out during the day. It just might not have been seen,» said lead author Yash Sondhi, a Ph.D. student at Florida International University co-advised by Kawahara. «We wanted to look past the standard nocturnal or diurnal categories that could be an oversimplification.»
For years, Kawahara tried to find a portable device that would allow him to track insects while working in the field with his collaborator Jesse Barber at Boise State University, at times even attempting to outsource the work to companies in the hopes they could build it for him. But equipment sensitive enough to measure the delicate movements of the smallest moths while being durable enough to hold up in harsh environments and remote locations without electricity or internet proved difficult to engineer.
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Materials provided by Florida Museum of Natural History. Original written by Angela Nicoletti and Jerald Pinson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.