Insects of the night - how AI and art can help them

The apparatus goes by the name of "ARNI". It can be found at eight locations in Germany - for example in Bonn, in the park behind the Museum Koenig. There, Dr Peter Grobe shows how the "Automated Recorder for Nocturnal Insects" attracts moths in the dark so that a nationwide team of researchers and a large number of volunteers can systematically record the population and its changes. "Every two minutes, the camera takes a picture of a disc on which the insects are sitting," explains the biodiversity computer scientist at the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB). They are attracted by UV light, which causes them to settle on the disc. The documentation starts at dusk and continues until the early morning. "The lamp is switched off one hour before sunrise," explains Peter Grobe, "then the moths can fly away to protect themselves from birds or other predators before dawn."

The "ARNI" camera trap is part of the LEPMON project, in which an interdisciplinary team is involved, including researchers from Jena, Halle, Leipzig, Marburg and Bonn. The project is managed by the Institute of Zoology at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, which is also responsible for setting up the camera traps. The LIB in Bonn is developing the infrastructure for data collection and management. The LIB also provides the web portal(https://lepmon.de) and is developing a data portal that will provide an overview of all the results. LEPMON stands for "Recording the biodiversity of moths with automated camera traps and artificial intelligence". The abbreviation is made up of Lepidoptera and monitoring, i.e. the documentation of moths.

Overall, the project has three objectives, explains Peter Grobe from the LIB. It aims to show how the population of moths in cities differs from rural regions, how biodiversity can be recorded with the help of artificial intelligence and how the work of volunteers and experts affects the recording of biodiversity.

Even if this project interferes with the moths' way of life for research purposes: "Our findings can later help to sensitise municipalities and companies and thus protect the biodiversity of moths," says Peter Grobe.

Less light pollution improves the lives of insects

The LEPMON project is part of a series of LIB research approaches that aim to learn more about the insects of the night. The research should help to ensure that the animals can develop freely and help to reduce light pollution in cities. This is because many insect species suffer from the loss of natural darkness: artificial light irritates the animals, they buzz around lamps and are prevented from feeding and reproducing. They also become easy prey for hungry animals such as bats. It is estimated that in Germany alone, one billion insects are threatened by light pollution every warm night because they are disturbed in their natural behaviour by light sources on the ground and in the sky and often die.

More insect protection through warmer light at railway stations

This is a problem that the German Centre for Rail Transport Research at the Federal Railway Authority and Deutsche Bahn InfraGO AG have also recognised. This is why they are working together with the LIB in a research project entitled "BALIN - Insect protection at railway stations by reducing light pollution". The project is investigating how lighting at railway stations affects the behaviour of insects. Dr Marianne Espeland, head of the Lepidoptera collection - the scientific collection of butterfly species - and doctoral student Carmen Ludreschl were among those involved in the project from the LIB. "We were able to investigate the effects of different types of lighting on insects at selected test stations in Brandenburg. We found that the insects were also attracted to different degrees by different lamps," explains Dr Marianne Espeland. The results are currently awaiting publication. The specific measures that can be derived from them for railway station lighting still need to be analysed.