New kind of polarotaxis governed by degree of polarization: attraction of tabanid flies to differently polarizing host animals and water surfaces

Egri, Ádám; Blahó, Miklós; Sandor, A.; Kriska, György; Gyurkovszky, Mónika; Farkas, Róbert; Horváth, Gábor

doi:10.1007/s00114-012-0916-2

Cited by 55 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…1A, C). Artificial lighting has been shown to disrupt nocturnal navigation and migration in some arthropods by masking the physical properties (i.e., polarization) of the moon's naturally reflected light (Horvath et al 2009) and is widely known to attract phototaxic insects (Horvath et al 2011, Egri et al 2012). An increase in artificial lighting reflecting off the water's surface may thusly attract terrestrial arthropods to the stream, a pattern weakly supported by a positive response of terrestrial arthropod biomass to the experimental increase in light (P ¼ 0.069).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bright lights, big city: influences of ecological light pollution on reciprocal stream–riparian invertebrate fluxes

Meyer

Sullivan

2013

Ecological Applications

118

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cities produce considerable ecological light pollution (ELP), yet the effects of artificial night lighting on biological communities and ecosystem function have not been fully explored. From June 2010 to June 2011, we surveyed aquatic emergent insects, riparian arthropods entering the water, and riparian spiders of the family Tetragnathidae at nine stream reaches representing common ambient ELP levels of Columbus, Ohio, USA, streams (low, 0.1-0.5 lux; moderate, 0.6-2.0 lux; high, 2.1-4.0 lux). In August 2011, we experimentally increased light levels at the low- and moderate-treatment reaches to 10-12 lux to represent urban streams exposed to extremely high levels of ELP. Although season exerted the dominant influence on invertebrate fluxes over the course of the year, when analyzed by season, we found that light strongly influenced multiple invertebrate responses. The experimental light addition resulted in a 44% decrease in tetragnathid spider density (P = 0.035), decreases of 16% in family richness (P = 0.040) and 76% in mean body size (P = 0.022) of aquatic emergent insects, and a 309% increase in mean body size of terrestrial arthropods (P = 0.015). Our results provide evidence that artificial light sources can alter community structure and ecosystem function in streams via changes in reciprocal aquatic-terrestrial fluxes of invertebrates.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bright lights, big city: influences of ecological light pollution on reciprocal stream–riparian invertebrate fluxes

Meyer

Sullivan

2013

Ecological Applications

118

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…They were, however, identified as tabanid flies (Diptera: Tabanidae) with the use of the taxonomy textbook [17]. Although the sex of the captured tabanids was not determined, from earlier studies [5], [11], [12], [13], [20] we know that vertical and/or elevated test surfaces attract only female tabanids, while horizontally polarizing test surfaces laid on the ground attract female and male tabanids, both being positively polarotactic. In a parallel experiment lasting from 10 July to 7 September 2010, we captured tabanids with a trap composed of a rectangular black plastic tray (50 cm ×50 cm) filled with transparent vegetable oil on the ground.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spottier Targets Are Less Attractive to Tabanid Flies: On the Tabanid-Repellency of Spotty Fur Patterns

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During blood-sucking, female members of the family Tabanidae transmit pathogens of serious diseases and annoy their host animals so strongly that they cannot graze, thus the health of the hosts is drastically reduced. Consequently, a tabanid-resistant coat with appropriate brightness, colour and pattern is advantageous for the host. Spotty coats are widespread among mammals, especially in cattle (Bos primigenius). In field experiments we studied the influence of the size and number of spots on the attractiveness of test surfaces to tabanids that are attracted to linearly polarized light. We measured the reflection-polarization characteristics of living cattle, spotty cattle coats and the used test surfaces. We show here that the smaller and the more numerous the spots, the less attractive the target (host) is to tabanids. We demonstrate that the attractiveness of spotty patterns to tabanids is also reduced if the target exhibits spottiness only in the angle of polarization pattern, while being homogeneous grey with a constant high degree of polarization. Tabanid flies respond strongly to linearly polarized light, and we show that bright and dark parts of cattle coats reflect light with different degrees and angles of polarization that in combination with dark spots on a bright coat surface disrupt the attractiveness to tabanids. This could be one of the possible evolutionary benefits that explains why spotty coat patterns are so widespread in mammals, especially in ungulates, many species of which are tabanid hosts.

show abstract

“…The effects of specifi c materials and dye colors (Mihok & Carlson, 2007), as well as different natural and synthetic attractants (Krčmar, 2005;Krčmar et al, 2006Krčmar et al, , 2010, have been studied. According to Egri et al (2012), linearly polarized light attracts host-seeking females, but sensitivity for polarization of light has not been studied at the structural level of the horse fl y eyes and may differ among species (Baldacchino et al, 2014a).…”

Section: Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative efficiency of traps for horse fly (Diptera: Tabanidae) survey in riparian oak-ash forests in Danube floodplain

Mikuška¹,

Mlinarić²,

Begović³

et al. 2016

Eur. J. Entomol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The objective of this work was to evaluate the relative trap effi ciency of the three modifi ed traps baited with 1-octen-3-ol as attractant, Box, Nzi and Canopy, for horse fl y (Tabanidae) survey. Nine traps (three traps per trap type) were tested in 3 × 3 Latin square designs during summer 2011 in riparian oak-ash forests in the Danube fl oodplain of Croatia. Overall, the traps caught 1,986 specimens of 11 horse fl ies species during the study period. The most abundant species caught was Tabanus bromius (58%), followed by Tabanus tergestinus (21%), Tabanus maculicornis (16%), Tabanus sudeticus (2%), Atylotus loewianus (1%) and Tabanus autumnalis (1%). Both the Box traps and the Nzi traps had signifi cantly greater catch effi ciencies than the Canopy traps (β box = 2.47, X 2 = 65.48, df = 1, P < 0.001 and β nzi = 1.54, X 2 = 25.12, df = 1, P < 0.001, respectively). Nzi traps had a catch rate 4.65 (95% CI: 2.55, 8.48) times greater than Canopy traps and Box traps had a catch rate 11.77 (95% CI: 6.48, 21.39) times greater than Canopy traps. Based on Shannon-Wiener diversity indices Nzi traps were better suited for diversity survey and had higher (H' = 1.33) indices than Box (H' = 1.08) or Canopy traps (H' = 1.00).

show abstract

New kind of polarotaxis governed by degree of polarization: attraction of tabanid flies to differently polarizing host animals and water surfaces

Cited by 55 publications

References 33 publications

Bright lights, big city: influences of ecological light pollution on reciprocal stream–riparian invertebrate fluxes

Bright lights, big city: influences of ecological light pollution on reciprocal stream–riparian invertebrate fluxes

Spottier Targets Are Less Attractive to Tabanid Flies: On the Tabanid-Repellency of Spotty Fur Patterns

Comparative efficiency of traps for horse fly (Diptera: Tabanidae) survey in riparian oak-ash forests in Danube floodplain

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About