Conserving the Glow of Nature’s Bioluminescent Beetles
Written by A. Srivastava
When you think firefly, you might think of the Big Dipper Firefly, the most common firefly species in North America with a yellow, familiar glow and its characteristic j-shaped flash pattern. But have you ever noticed an orange or even blue glow? Have you thought about just how many fireflies live around you and the world? It’s much harder to conceptualize the diversity of firefly species around the globe as well as in our own backyards. It’s crucial to protect this diversity and further conserve threatened species.
The Xerces Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of invertebrates around the world and is named after the Xerces blue butterfly, the first known species to go extinct in North America due to human activity. The invertebrates they wish to protect aren’t just insects, they include other animals like freshwater mussels and snails.
“The Xerces Society, since the early 1950s, has worked to protect invertebrates and their habitats. We do that through research, we do that through education, and political advocacy sometimes as well as implied restoration projects–so improving habitats,” Richard says. Richard Joyce is an endangered species conservation biologist who works with the Xerces Society and is coordinating the Firefly Atlas Project that seeks to collect, organize, and present information on various firefly species and where they live. As such, the Xerces Society is a valuable resource that we at the Atlanta Firefly Project use for information about firefly conservation.
Protecting endangered species is extremely important to the environment but also to the general public. “It’s an easy question and it’s a hard question,” Richard explains when asked about how conserving endangered species is necessary, “A lot of the time we’ll go to utilitarian reasons or ‘what’s the use of a species’ [for people]...within the world of invertebrates there’s a lot of reasons.” The Xerces Society focuses plenty on pollinators which are vital to agriculture and are the main way most plants reproduce. They help produce seeds, flowers, and food. Unfortunately, many pollinators like the American bumblebee are endangered and face extinction.
Humans have long since used fireflies for their glow power. “Fireflies historically were harvested to collect the chemicals in their bodies, the luciferin and luciferase, that were used for all sorts of biomedical research,” Richard says. Children were once paid to capture these creatures and bring them back to labs to be studied. Over time, these chemicals were able to be made artificially and utilized in cancer and disease research. How cool!
In modern-day, we may no longer harvest fireflies but unfortunately, humans still threaten their survival and diversity with non-environmentally friendly practices. Light pollution is one of the major factors in why we see fewer fireflies than before. The use of artificial lighting at night such as street lamps, flood lights, stadium lighting, and porch lights can all disrupt and confuse fireflies as they glow, looking for mates to reproduce with. Pesticide use can also threaten fireflies at multiple stages of their life cycle as the chemicals meant to kill other pests have unintended and adverse effects on them as well. Clearing out rotting logs and leaf litter destroys their habitat, especially for fireflies in their larval life stage. Over-mowing lawns and replacing native plants with non-natives also destroy habitats. All these practices pose threats to the diversity of fireflies.
Conservation can be tricky for these beetles as many don’t even see them until certain parts of the day or year. Many species are also only found in a specific area in the world like a wetland or mountain range, decreasing the chances one might be able to spot them if at all. It can be hard to maintain a connection with these fireflies and their preservation. “But the way I think about it, it’s part of our heritage, part of the identity of a place and the people who live in that place,” Richard puts it. All living things that live in an environment are what make up that environment, its identity, and its uniqueness. You may not know your yard if not for the forest of native plants behind it, the weeds that grow between the pavement cracks, the birds that fly around in the morning, or the lightning bugs that blink at twilight.
Education is one of the most effective tools when promoting successful conservation. “We’re trying to expand people’s awareness that the US indeed has–right now I think the number is sitting at–173 species, named species, of fireflies. And they’re very diverse in their habitats, how they live, what they look like, what their flash patterns look like,” Richard explains, who thinks one of the biggest challenges is the huge diversity of habitats and types of fireflies that there are. Where do we begin to look and capture information? Many do not even realize that there are hundreds of different flash patterns amongst the hundreds of different species.
Richard tells us there are many things people can do at home to help firefly conservation. “There are many simple things. In fact, they are easier than the alternative.”
Protecting their larval habitat by retaining soil moisture is a big thing people can do. Fireflies constantly need moisture which they get from the soil, in their food, and in leaf litter. Leaving leaf litter where it falls or raking them into small piles around your land instead of throwing it away is a huge thing you can do as a firefly spends most of its life as larvae living in it. This applies to rotting logs as well. “We really need to pay attention to their needs when they’re young,” he says.
Keeping their environment as dark as possible is also very important, particularly during the spring and summer firefly season. We have covered before about keeping artificial light at night to a minimum if they have to be lit at all. However, streetlights and stadium lights can be the worst offenders which to Richard means that we must tackle the problem at a community level. “Making sure as community members…we work with our government’s standards that make sense for both public safety and all the things we do need light for and protecting fireflies and other wildlife from all the negative effects.”
If you are interested in helping out further, our first blog post covers many things you can do in your own backyard right here. The Xerces website is also an amazing place to learn about fireflies and any invertebrate conservation as well as to sign up to participate in data collection for community science efforts much like the Atlanta Firefly Project. You can visit their website here: https://www.xerces.org/
Richard is also looking to release a website called Firefly Atlas soon, a website that seeks to list each species depending on your state and where to find them among other details.
Thank you for being community scientists.
