Whether you call them fireflies or lightning bugs, the airborne beetles — not flies — are synonymous with summer. But if you’ve noticed fewer and fewer of them lighting up the night, you’re not alone.
Researchers say climate change is threatening the bioluminescent bugs but not necessarily impacting the population yet.
Right now, there’s only anecdotal evidence to back reports that their population is on the decline.
While 40% of the world’s insect species are facing extinction, no one knows for sure exactly how that is impacting the firefly population due to there being no pre-existing data on firefly populations.
So, while a lot of species’ numbers may seem low, there’s no way to know if that means they are endangered.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species, 1 in 3 North American fireflies may be at risk of extinction. However, that number may be much higher, since nearly half of the assessed species are what researchers call “data deficient.”
Other factors many firefly enthusiasts and experts say likely play a role in the apparent decline are development and light pollution. But again, that’s not known for sure.
However, a new study did find it’s not just climate change that impacts the lightning bug population; it’s other environmental factors, like short-term weather patterns. Those patterns can consist of changes in precipitation, causing abnormally dry or abnormally wet conditions, for example.
Researchers used advanced artificial intelligence to analyze more than 24,000 surveys through the citizen science initiative Firefly Watch.
The researchers said their study is the first comprehensive attempt to apply a data-driven approach to understanding firefly population dynamics, but more research is needed. However, as one Virginia Tech entomologist put it, studying fireflies is “not where the money is.”
Firefly Watch — now called the Firefly Atlas — is a group of researchers looking to collect more anecdotal data in hopes of getting a better idea of what’s going on and possibly launch more in-depth studies.
