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By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News
The presence of street lights substantially changes the ecology of
ground-dwelling invertebrates and bugs, research suggests.
Scientists trapped nearly 1,200 of the animals in areas under and between
street lights in Helston in Cornwall.
They report in Biology Letters that invertebrate predators and scavengers were
more common near the lights, even during the day.
That suggests street lights influence ecology more than previously thought.
Much work in recent years has gone into addressing the effects that street
lights can have on local, transient populations of bugs - particularly those
that can fly and have significant ranges of exploration.
But the effects of street lights on the vast communities of invertebrates on
the ground remained unaddressed.
Thomas Davies of the University of Exeter and his colleagues set 28 traps in
Helston, some just under street lights, and some in dark regions midway between
them, over a three-night period.
The team found in general that a higher number of animals were trapped near the
lights.
But the relative proportions of scavengers such as beetles and predators such
as harvestmen and wolf spiders were significantly different, with a higher
proportion being found near the lights - even during the day.
"This study now seems to be indicating that those transient, nocturnal effects
on the behaviour of the animals are actually being translated into the habitat
preferences of the animals in the daytime as well," Dr Davies said.
"It's amazing how long we've been using street lighting and artificial
lighting, and how little research has been done on the impact of those lights
on the environment," he told BBC News.
Dr Davies stressed that the study was small and its findings preliminary, but
that it invited future study into much wider-ranging environmental effects.
"Invertebrates in the UK at least are undergoing a bit of a biodiversity crisis
and have been for some time now, and they're very important for a number of
ecosystem syervices such as pollination and the breakdown of organic matter,"
he explained.
"So the impact of street lights on invertebrate communities could be very, very
important, could be problematic, but we simply don't know at the moment - we
need to do the research."