Project description
When night lights disorient nature
Streetlamps and illuminated buildings spill into habitats that once ran on moonlight and stars, disrupting nocturnal life. It is not just a matter of lost stargazing, but a biological crisis. For insects, the consequences are increasingly stark. Moths, vital pollinators and a cornerstone of many food webs, are declining, and light pollution is a significant cause. However, how moths actually navigate these altered skies remains poorly understood. The ERC-funded LIGHTSTAR project aims to map how moths orient themselves by combining large-scale field experiments with precise manipulations of streetlights, moonlight and polarised light. A drone-based 3D tracking system will capture movement. The findings will show how artificial lighting fragments habitats and how smarter lighting could help reconnect them.
Objective
The widespread use of artificial lighting has drastically changed night skies across the globe, creating a specific threat to nocturnal species: light pollution. Recently, light pollution has been identified as one driver of insect decline. Among nocturnal insects, moths are particularly important as they serve as both key pollinators and food source, providing essential ecosystem functions. To mitigate the effects of light pollution, a comprehensive understanding of moth orientation is essential, including their response to natural and artificial light as well as their interplay. To date the available data is extremely limited, primarily due to the challenging conditions of night-time research and the lack of methods for collecting behavioural data in the field.
LIGHTSTAR will set a paradigm-shift beyond classical field and laboratory experiments by combining large-scale field experiments across a light pollution gradient with targeted manipulations of streetlights, moonlight, and polarized light. This approach will allow an in-depth investigation on the orientation performance of moths in dependence on the light environment. We will develop a drone-based 3D tracking system to obtain behavioural data of unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Incorporating these novel 3D data into our advanced simulation tools will fundamentally broaden our understanding of habitat fragmentation caused by streetlights and will allow a new dimension of assessing habitat connectivity.
The data collected will, for the first time, provide a holistic understanding of the impact of light pollution on the orientation of nocturnal insects. Our discoveries will be highly valuable for developing strategies to mitigate their decline and promote insect-friendly lighting solutions that can reduce the risk of species extinctions and maintain connectivity of habitats. Moreover, our new tracking system will unlock new realms for all research on movement and behavioural ecology of insects.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences environmental sciences pollution
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology entomology
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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26129 Oldenburg
Germany
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