Evaluation of Light Trap against Different Coloured Electric Bulbs for Trapping Phototrophic Insects

Phototactic Response of Two Spotted Cricket (Gryllus bimaculatus De Geer) to Electric Bulb Light Colours and Types

“…LED bulbs have been reported to be insect friendly (Eisenbeis & Erick, 2010;Okrikata et al, 2020), eco-friendly and energy saving (Wakefield et al, 2017) and hardly emits ultraviolet radiations. It has also been observed that different bulb types attract insects at varying levels (Nirmal et al, 2017;Ebadi et al, 2018). Contrary to the findings of the current study, Barghini & de Medeiros (2012) and Wakefield et al (2017) in their studies opined that LEDs are less attractive to many insect species than their incandescent, compact fluorescent and metallic halide counterparts as many insect species according to them, are disproportionately attracted to UV lights.…”

“…This was apparently noticed in the current study with respect to LED. That white light was highly attractive to G. bimaculatus in the current study have been reported by Nirmal et al (2017) and Miech (2018) with Miech (2018) pointing out that white light is being used in insect traps to harvest present study. This contrasts the finding of Chitra (2018) who found red coloured incandescent bulbs most attractive to orthopterans predominated by G. bimaculatus.…”

“…Different insects have preferences for different light bulb colours and types which could be attributed to the differences in wavelength/intensities of these respective colours (Nirmal et al, 2017;Chukwu et al, 2019;Okrikata et al, 2020). Insect abundance including G. bimaculatus is known to be more in the tropics, but this abundance is not adequately harnessed for man's benefit.…”

“…In addition, even though Wakefield et al (2017) reported higher insect attractiveness to halogen bulbs because of its emission of UV light in southern England, LED bulbs was reported by the authors to attract greater insect diversity than incandescent bulbs. In a study conducted by Nirmal et al (2017) and Chitra (2018) they observed that irrespective of colours, incandescent bulbs were more attractive than compound fluorescent light with respect to orthopteran species. That incandescent bulbs were more attractive to fluorescent light in their study and LED to incandescent in the present study underscores the need to evaluate the responses of insects to different electric light types.…”

“…Preferences to different light bulb colours and types have been studied in a number of insects (Pawson & Bader, 2014;Wakefield et al, 2016;Nirmal et al, 2017;Wakefield et al, 2017;Chukwu et al, 2019) with some findings showing that some electric bulb colours or types might pose a threat to the biodiversity of surrounding ecosystems due to their high attractiveness to a wide range of insect species (Eisenbeis & Erick, 2010).…”