The use of vertical-looking radar to continuously monitor the insect fauna flying at altitude over southern England

Abstract The continuous automatic monitoring of the aerial density, biomass and relative diversity of high-flying insect faunas has been made practicable by a new, vertical-looking radar. This inexpensive radar system, with its novel signal analysis capability, represents a major advance over earlier vertical-beam radars because it provides estimates of the body mass of individual overflying insects, as well as measurements of their direction and speed of movement. This paper summarizes data collected over a three-month period by the new radar in the height range from 150 m to c.1 km, over agricultural land in Worcestershire, England. The day-to-day variation in the numbers of insects and their altitudinal and diurnal patterns of flight activity are presented. Examples are also given of distributions of mass, displacement speed and direction, and orientation direction. The potential of the new radar for various research and operational monitoring tasks is briefly discussed.

[1]  D. Reynolds,et al.  Radar monitoring of locusts and other migratory insects. , 1993 .

[2]  J. R. Riley,et al.  A Method for Routine Monitoring of the Aerial Migration of Insects by Using a Vertical-Looking Radar , 1993 .

[3]  B. Campistron Characteristic distributions of angel echoes in the lower atmosphere and their meteorological implications , 1975 .

[4]  J. A. Witz,et al.  An Automated, Vertical Looking, X-Band Radar System for Continuously Monitoring Aerial Insect Activity , 1993 .

[5]  V. Drake,et al.  The Influence of Atmospheric Structure and Motions on Insect Migration , 1988 .

[6]  Ian P. Woiwod,et al.  Patterns of density dependence in moths and aphids , 1992 .

[7]  I. Woiwod,et al.  Flying in the face of change , 1994 .

[8]  Ian P. Woiwod,et al.  Using Response-Surface Methodology to Detect Chaos in Ecological Time Series , 1993 .

[9]  J. Bale,et al.  Aphids in a changing climate , 1995 .

[10]  J. Riley,et al.  Radar-based studies of the migratory flight of grasshoppers in the middle Niger area of Mali. , 1979, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[11]  G. W. Schaefer,et al.  An Airborne Radar Technique for the Investigation and Control of Migrating Pest Insects , 1979 .

[12]  Ian P. Woiwod,et al.  Insect Movement: Mechanisms and Consequences , 2001 .

[13]  D. R. Reynolds,et al.  Vertical-looking radar as a means to improve forecasting and control of desert locusts , 1997 .

[14]  C. G. Johnson,et al.  Migration and dispersal of insects by flight. , 1971 .

[15]  J. A. Freeman Studies in the Distribution of Insects by Aerial Currents , 1945 .

[16]  A. C. Hardy,et al.  Studies in the Distribution of Insects by Aerial Currents , 1938 .

[17]  S. Hobbs,et al.  An airborne radar technique for studying insect migration , 1989 .

[18]  J. R. Riley,et al.  Signal processing in a novel radar system for monitoring insect migration , 1996 .

[19]  Preliminary results of utilizing the high resolution FM radar as a boundary-layer probe , 1971 .

[20]  R. Leigh,et al.  Long-term Experiments in Agricultural and Ecological Sciences , 1994 .

[21]  C. D. Klein,et al.  Rice hulls as an alternative to bagasse for rearing horn flies, Haematobia irritans (L.). , 1993 .

[22]  Ian P. Woiwod,et al.  Detecting chaotic dynamics of insect populations from long‐term survey data , 1997 .

[23]  P. A. Burnett World Perspectives on Barley Yellow Dwarf , 1990 .

[24]  Don R. Reynolds,et al.  Orientation at Night by High-Flying Insects , 1986 .

[25]  Hans Ottersten RADAR ANGELS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO METEOROLOGICAL FACTORS. , 1970 .

[26]  R. Peveling,et al.  New Strategies in Locust Control , 1997, Birkhäuser Basel.

[27]  S. Hobbs,et al.  Recent airborne radar observations of migrant pests in the United States , 1990 .

[28]  D. R. Reynolds,et al.  A Long-Range Migration of Grasshoppers Observed in the Sahelian Zone of Mali by Two Radars , 1983 .

[29]  Don R. Reynolds,et al.  Flight behaviour and migration of insect pests. Radar studies in developing countries. , 1997 .

[30]  G. M. Tatchell Monitoring and forecasting aphid problems , 1991 .

[31]  I. Katz,et al.  Probing the clear atmosphere with high power, high resolution radars , 1969 .