NEC06796 See and be seen: Understanding trade-offs in bioluminescent signalling and how it is affected by artificial lighting at night

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Artificial lighting at night (ALAN) is now present across large areas of the planet primarily because of the illumination of roads and buildings. Changes in the photic environment caused by ALAN are a form of environmental disturbance displacing nocturnal animals to darker 'refuge' habitats. Moreover, by allowing diurnal animals to extend activity into the night, they create additional pressures on nocturnal species. Although spatial and temporal displacement caused by ALAN has been documented, there is little understanding of its impacts upon the basic biology of most animals, or of the larger scale effects upon populations. Our aim is to understand how ALAN affects animals at the behavioural, physiological, population and ecological levels, using glow worms as an indicator species, a proverbial 'canary in the mine'. Our preliminary data suggest that the effects of ALAN upon glow worms may be severe because metabolic costs of glowing are high but females attract significantly fewer males when illuminated by artificial lighting. Yet females continue to invest in signalling even in brightly lit environments, potentially robbing them of valuable energy that must be diverted from reproduction. Moreover, national survey data suggest that glow worm populations are fragmentary, raising the prospect that roadside lighting may act as a barrier to dispersal affecting the structure of populations and their ultimate survival. We will use a unique combination of laboratory and field experiments coupled with establishing the genetic population structure and spatial modelling to quantify the impact of ALAN upon the fundamental biology of glow worms at the local and national scales. Using these techniques we will test the hypothesis that ALAN has a severe impact upon glow worm populations, potentially isolating them and driving them to extinction. By doing so, we will provide a unique data set that will have impacts for both academics and policy makers (see Pathways to Impact).

1. Academic Community: We envisage that our findings will have broad impact upon the academic community. Our experiments will yield data of significance for academics studying the impact of artificial lighting at night (ALAN) upon the behaviour of nocturnal species. By quantifying the energy consumption of physiological tissues and processes, including male photoreceptors, we will produce insights of value to physiologists and visual neuroscientists. Additionally, the data we obtain during the grant will provide new physiological insights into the trade-offs governing investment in mating and reproductive effort, expanding the influence of our project to behavioural ecologists. Our findings will also provide insights into the genetic structure of insect populations, and how gene flow is affected by differential movement of males and females, which will be of significance for population geneticists. Moreover, by assessing the impact of manmade barriers upon populations, we will provide data of relevance for conservation scientists. We will disseminate our findings in peer-reviewed journals and at scientific conferences to ensure we reach a broad audience (see Academic Beneficiaries). The project will contribute to capacity building by exposing the PDRA to multidisciplinary approaches and training in numerous techniques including in vivo intracellular electrophysiology, statistical modelling and GIS, histology, metabolic rate analysis.

2. Policy: A key part of the impact will be to engage with policy makers at both the local and national levels. At the local level, we will make use of the position of our sites within the South Downs National Park and the UNESCO Brighton & Lewes Downs Biosphere and through a local NGO, the Sussex Wildlife Trust, to link to local policy makers (see Letters of Support). We have already made links to the local council through these organisations. We will engage with these organisations throughout the duration of the grant and beyond. At the national level, we will work with Natural England, Buglife and a major land owner, the National Trust (see Letters of Support). Our links with these organisations will allow us to advertise the project, and to engage with policy makers and the public. Where possible, we will focus on the means of mitigating the impacts of ALAN on glow worms through relatively simple interventions, such as extinguishing unnecessary lighting that does not impact on public safety.

3. Public Outreach: There is broad public interest in glow worms with numerous amateur groups meeting across the country each summer to find glowing females. We will harness this interest by developing an app on which sightings of glowing females can be recorded and uploaded to a national database as part of a citizen science project (see Pathways to Impact), as well as through workshops/outreach events. We have already piloted an event during National Insect Week 2018 taking members of the public onto the South Downs to find glow worms. Using this as our template, we will repeat these outreach events in which we will instruct members of the public on monitoring populations by capturing males as well as finding glowing females. We have also requested funds to make artificial lures for males that we will supply to entomology groups across the country (see Pathways to Impact). We will use already established links to many such groups through the Amateur Entomological Society and Sussex Wildlife Trust to advertise these events. Locally, we will discuss our work and findings at Café Scientifique and the Brighton Science Festival. We will also make use of university contacts to visit local schools to talk about our research and findings. Finally, we will also make use of our contacts within the media to reach a wide audience. These links are very effective as demonstrated by the experiments we performed to obtain preliminary data for this application being televised on BBC Countryfile Diaries.