1 / 15

Documenting Changes in Moth Life-Cycles and Abundance Caused by Urban Warming and Pollution

DiscoverLife is an ecology research project documenting the impact of urban warming and pollution on moth life-cycles and abundance. Using photographs and interactive guides, we model potential climate change impacts and actual pollution effects. Preliminary data reveals differences in moth abundance and species diversity between Atlanta and Athens. Join us in April, May, and June for crucial observations.

ddesmond
Download Presentation

Documenting Changes in Moth Life-Cycles and Abundance Caused by Urban Warming and Pollution

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Documenting Changes in Moth Life-Cycles and AbundanceCaused by Urban Warming and Pollution Trung Quach, Yen Duong, Vy Tran

  2. What is DiscoverLife? • Ecology research project run by Dr. John Pickering, University of Georgia. • Provides tools for documenting (photographs) and identifying (interactive guides) insects. • Uses a network of sites to model the potential impacts of climate change and actual impacts of pollution.

  3. Where and Why? • Atlanta and Athens have the same basic climate and habitats. • Atlanta has more pollution. • Atlanta is (artificially) warmer at night.

  4. Heat Islands Model Global Warming • Major cities have artificially hotter night-time temperatures. (Pavement holds heat longer.) • Changes in biodiversity in these Heat Islands can predict future changes in biodiversity for the whole region due to global warming. • “Natural” Experiment

  5. What are we comparing? • Total number of species and number of each species seen • Representation of major categories, such as Lichen Moths • Lichen moths feed off of lichens as caterpillars. • Lichens are sensitive to pollution. Lichen Moth

  6. Overall Moth Data • Preliminary data available to compare Atlanta to Athens. • Table 1 & 2 shows the quality of the data. Pay attention to the following: • Number of total photos taken (including moth, light source, phone pictures) • Number of moths that are identified to the species level • Number of “Phone” pictures (nights of effort)

  7. Atlanta Athens Quality of Data

  8. Species Data • Atlanta has a lower abundance of moths. - Additionally, the species seen in Atlanta should be among the common moths of Athens. • Table 2 shows the 30 most common species in both Athens and Atlanta.

  9. Top 30 Species Athens vs. Atlanta

  10. Top 30 Species Atlanta vs. Athens

  11. Lichen moths

  12. Conclusions • Atlanta has a lower abundance of moths and of species even with equal effort. (phone pictures) • Comparing Athens to Atlanta, many species match each other in top 30. However, the ratio of top 1 Moths and photos in Atlanta is even lower than the ratio of top 30 of Athens. • Atlanta does not have any lichen moths, while 6% of Athens’ moths are lichen ones. Atlanta’s air pollution may reduce the lichen’s population. • April, May, and June will be incredibly important months for the project!

  13. Acknowledgments • Dr. John Pickering and Ms. Nancy Lowe (UGA) - Ms. Victoria Staples and Mr. Cameron Prybol • Dr. Jonathan Lochamy and Dr. Ilse Rickets (GPC) • Additional Interns not present: Priscilla Adodo, Dienabou Diawara, Tshibambe Tshimbombu*, Ndasi Hepi*, Folashade Maxwell*, Yitbarek Kazentet*, Mwoddah Habib, Imien Adodo*, Hanna Nune*, Fatima Yadudu*, Quan Bui*, Khoa Nguyen*, Kristen Farley*, and JabrelHersi*. • Funding provided by STEM II Minigrant * Interns from prior year.

More Related