Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The sight of insects swarming around lamps is ancient and well known, but the reasons for this behavior remain disputed. We propose that attraction to light is not merely a sensory accident, but an adaptive strategy during nuptial flights: under certain conditions, flying toward a light source can be the optimal way to encounter mates, because it aligns flight with pheromone gradients and reproductive dispersal. We developed an agent-based model to test this hypothesis, varying inertia/slip and the acceleration produced by pheromone. The results corroborate that light-oriented flight is strongly advantageous under a broad range of conditions, reaching fixation in over 90% of replicates when slipperiness is high. In addition, the simulations reveal an abrupt transition between regimes in which non-directed flight is favored and regimes in which light-directed flight is favored. This transition is controlled by inertia/slip and pheromone acceleration and is illustrated by phase diagrams. Control simulations without the directional advantage recovered the neutral expectation of 50% blue fixation, confirming that the effect is not an artifact of the model implementation. The primary implication is ecological: if the hypothesis is correct, electric lamps exploit a reproductive strategy and disrupt nuptial flights at the stage when reproduction is most consequential. The transition adds a mechanistic dimension, showing that small changes in flight dynamics can switch populations between radically different behavioral regimes. These findings, if confirmed empirically, would reframe attraction to light as a reproductive trap and add urgency to mitigating light pollution for insect conservation.
DOI: 10.32942/x2540j
Author: Gustavo Gollo
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7221078637