Estimation of dispersal ability responding to environmental conditions: larval dispersal of the flightless firefly, Luciola parvula (Coleoptera: Lampyridae)

Abstract

We provided an extensional method for diffusion equation models so far presented to cover cases where diffusion coefficients temporally change. We applied this method to data sampled from mark recapture surveys to estimate the natural mean dispersal distance and diffusion coefficients of terrestrial firefly larvae, Luciola parvula Kiesenwetter (Coleoptera: Lampyridae: Luciolinae). The surveys were conducted twice (December 2009 and March–April 2010) on a Cryptomeria plantation where 100 traps were placed in a lattice pattern at 30 cm intervals (10 × 10). Marked larvae were released at the center of the lattice, and the number of recaptures was recorded. Larval dispersal became remarkably active on the first night with rainfall as well as on the following day. The estimated natural mean dispersal distances (±SE) were 100.7 (±18.4) cm (December) and 245.4 (±700.0) cm (March–April). The diffusion coefficients just after rainfall were estimated to increase by 14.2 (±6.1) times (December) and 106.0 (±55.9) times (March–April) (±SE). Larvae were expected to disperse no further from where their eggs were laid. Most of their dispersing activity took place just after rainfall. Our extensional method was able to effectively illustrate that larval dispersal was affected by rainfall. This method can be usefully applied to any other species that disperses according to environmental conditions.

What’s flashing in Kadamaian? A Note on Fireflies (Coleoptera: Lampyridae) in Kadamaian, Sabah

“…For Lampyridae larva, such as Pyrocoelia sp. found in Podos leaf litter (Figure 4), food may be a factor at this phase in which they spend most of their time hunting snails on the forest floor (Jaikla et al, 2020;Kirton et al, 2006;Lewis et al, 2020) with limited dispersal range, as much as 100.7 to 245.4 cm for Luciola parvula flightless female in daily recapture rate of mark-releaserecapture study (Kakehashi et al, 2014). As they grow into adulthood, fireflies with flight ability will be able to disperse more to find mates such as Luciola substriata that have the ability to fly ~0.2 -0.4 metres per second (Fu, 2005found in Zhang et al, 2020.…”

“…Though our data is insufficient to conclude ecological associations of land use type with the species distribution, this observation is similar with several findings in which Lampyridae individuals exist in various habitats including secondary forests (Viviani, 2001;Viviani et al, 2012) and plantations. For example, Inflata indica was collected from rubber and palm plantations as well as banana orchard (Ballantyne et al, 2015); Luciola parvula from the Japanese cedar plantation (Kakehashi et al, 2014); Pyrocoelia tonkinensis from rubber plantation (Senarat et al, 2019); and Diaphanes sp., Pyrocoelia sp. and Trisinuata sp.…”

Behavioral responses of bioluminescent fireflies to artificial light at night

“…Whether light-polluted populations are capable of fully transitioning to new habitat types remains unknown, as are the associated fitness costs: even if adults are relatively flexible in their habitat requirements their juvenile stages may not be. Field studies of firefly movement under artificial light are rare and almost exclusively involve single generations of largely subterranean larvae (Wanjiru Mbugua et al, 2020;Owens and Lewis, 2021a; see also Kakehashi et al, 2014) or species that are relatively resilient to ALAN (Firebaugh and Haynes, 2016;; but see Gardiner and Didham, 2021). The primary dispersing life stage (larvae, adult males or females) is also unknown for nearly every species (but see Kaufmann, 1965), despite how crucial this information is for conservation planning (Schultz et al, 2019).…”