ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2023
Does artificial light at night alter moth community composition?
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- From concrete to canopy: Illuminating moth biodiversity in New York City's urban jungle.PloS one · 2026Article
- Experimental study on the impact of continuous and dynamic artificial light at night on moths originating from different skyglow conditions.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Light pollution in complex ecological systems.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Does artificial light at night alter moth community composition?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Ecological studies investigating the effects of artificial light at night (ALAN) have primarily focused on single or a few species, and seldom on community-level dynamics. As ALAN is a potential cause of insect and biodiversity declines, community-level perspectives are essential. We empirically tested the hypothesis that moth species differentially respond to ALAN and that these responses can cause shifts in community composition. We sampled moths from prairie fragments in Colorado, USA. We tested whether local light sources, sky glow, site area and/or vegetation affected moth community diversity. We found that increased sky glow decreased moth abundance and species richness and shifted community composition. Increased sky glow shifted moth community composition when light and bait traps were combined; notably this result appears to be driven entirely by moths sampled at bait traps, which is an unbiased sampling technique. Our results show that ALAN has significant effects on moth communities and that local light sources have contrasting effects on moth community composition compared to sky glow. It is imperative that we better understand the contrasting effects of types of ALAN to comprehend the overall impacts of light pollution on biodiversity declines. This article is part of the theme issue 'Light pollution in complex ecological systems'.
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