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A framework for standardizing flight characteristics for separating biology from meteorology in long-range insect transport

Informally Refereed

Abstract

Once airborne during long-range transport, to what extent is the final destination determined by the biota? It is well known that a biological mechanism initiates flight and another biological mechanism terminates flight. Therefore, efforts to answer the above question should be focused on en route insect behavior.

A strategy is proposed to isolate biology from meteorology of long-range insect transport. The scheme has four parts: 1 ) laboratory observations of insect flight; 2) an insect flight-level weather mode; 3) observations of the thermal stratification of the lower troposphere; and 4) observations of insects in flight. Measured temperature/rise rate relationships can be entered into a time-dependent meteorological model. The model can simulate flight elevations as functions of vertical temperature stratification for an ensemble of insects. Model results can be compared with observations of insects in flight. Similarities between observed and modeled flight levels should be attributed to temperature/rise rate dependency. Differences between observed and modeled flight levels should be ascribable to higher-order meteorological phenomena and to biological factors. Identifying and eliminating other weather factors should yield the biological component of long-range insect transport -- if any.

Citation

Achtemeier, Gary L. 1998. A framework for standardizing flight characteristics for separating biology from meteorology in long-range insect transport. The 23rd conf. on Agricultural & Forest Meteorology, 13th conf. on Biometeorology and Aerobiology, and 2nd Urban Environment Symp. 360-363.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/438