Beyond the Blinking - The Charismatic Role of Fireflies 07-07-2025 Artwork

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Beyond the Blinking - The Charismatic Role of Fireflies 07-07-2025

July 07, 2025 • Rachann Mayer • Season 8 • Episode 28

0:00 | 31:20

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Dr. DJ McNeil joins us today to talk about fireflies, also known as lightning bugs. They are bioluminescent beetles that use rhythmic light flashes to communicate and attract mates. Through a chemical reaction in their abdomen, they produce a captivating glow. To hear more about their lifespan, from larvae to firefly, their roles as predator to slugs and snails, and how light pollution has affected the population, stay tuned!

Darin McNeil | Forestry and Natural Resources

https://xerces.org/publications/brochures/firefly-conservation-guide-to-protecting-jewels-of-night

https://xerces.org/publications/fact-sheets/smarter-pest-management-protecting-pollinators-at-home

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Audio file

RCP Podcast Fireflies Total Release Date 7-7-25.mp3

Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker 1

What's required to make a charismatic bug fly?

00:00:04 Speaker 1

We've got the answer.

00:00:05 Speaker 1

Two to three years living on the soil and eating escargot.

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How do lightning bugs do this?

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As a conservation biologist, I'm interested in figuring out how do we make more of this particular kind of animal.

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Is it an endangered bird?

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How do we make more habitat?

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How do we make more of them?

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So for insects, it's a little bit trickier to sell that, but I've kind of found particular groups of insects to work with that kind of embody

00:00:30 Speaker 2

that concept well, and those are either species that are really useful, like pollinators, or species that are really charismatic, like fireflies.

00:00:38 Speaker 1

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00:00:46 Speaker 1

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00:00:51 Speaker 1

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00:00:58 Speaker 1

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00:01:00 Speaker 1

00:01:00 Speaker 1

Visit us anytime on our Facebook page, Mariah Bell Manor Kennel, or MariahBellManorKennel.com.

00:01:06 Speaker 1

Enjoy your program.

00:01:08 Speaker 1

Welcome to Raising Connections, connecting your community to others through Critters, Companions, Commerce, and Agriculture.

00:01:15 Speaker 1

I'm Ray Shan Mayer.

00:01:16 Speaker 1

Let's raise some connections.

00:01:17 Speaker 1

00:01:21 Speaker 1

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00:01:22 Speaker 1

Darren, introduce yourself and tell us where you're from.

00:01:25 Speaker 2

Well, thank you very much.

00:01:26 Speaker 2

So my name is Darren McNeil.

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Everybody calls me DJ, though.

00:01:29 Speaker 2

I'm a professor of wildlife management at the University of Kentucky, but I'm actually originally from southwestern Michigan.

00:01:35 Speaker 2

I grew up in Battle Creek, Kalamazoo area.

00:01:38 Speaker 2

But now we call central Kentucky our home, where I teach and conduct research on wildlife and all kinds of cool critters.

00:01:45 Speaker 1

Those charismatic insects, I've never thought of an insect as being charismatic, makes an insect

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00:01:53 Speaker 2

Yeah, so I would say things that make an insect charismatic would be, is it colorful?

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Does it do something interesting like fireflies, which light up, of course, and do they bite and do they sting?

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If the answer is no, then you're probably in the right universe for charisma, or are you really useful?

00:02:11 Speaker 2

So pollinators, of course, can sting, and many of them can also bite as well.

00:02:15 Speaker 2

Most of them don't unless they're really pushed to, but bumblebees, for instance, and many of the solitary bees,

00:02:21 Speaker 2

are very charismatic because they're so useful to humans and they're objectively pretty cute.

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Honeybees also very charismatic.

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People tend to love honeybees.

00:02:29 Speaker 2

A little bit more controversial since they're not native on that one.

00:02:32 Speaker 2

But yeah, things that are visually attractive and don't cause harm to people like mosquitoes, probably not charismatic because they're biting you, that sort of thing.

00:02:42 Speaker 1

Insects in our world, we make so many connections with them.

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Most of our listeners can probably make the sound of a mosquito because it's a very high pitched sound.

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Or we build cars that look like beetle bugs, and we paint them bright green.

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I still think they look like potato bugs, but that's a whole different world.

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Even the words that we use, run like this, sting like a bee, you have all of these different things that insects impact our lives, even in wild cycles.

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You're out in the field of Kentucky right now, and you were telling us about the 17-year run of the locusts.

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You've got these dinosaur bugs out there that affect our lives, and most of us know what a

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focus sounds like in the evening, right?

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But then there's the other ones, the gnats.

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Anybody who's spent time in the South knows about gnats.

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Anybody who's been around at the wrong time when the white flies or the deer flies come out, but those aren't charismatic because they bite.

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Are those pollinators or are those just things we don't really want around?

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Do they have a job?

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That's a really tricky question.

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So are they pollinators?

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Most of those are not.

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Some of them are.

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So some of the biting flies

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flies, to be clear, are actually pollinators.

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But usually, it's a weird thing.

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With a lot of biting flies, the females are the ones that are doing the biting because they require the nutrients from blood to produce their eggs.

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But oftentimes, the males of those species, including many mosquitoes, actually are pollinators.

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Now, whether they're as efficient a pollinator as a bee, for instance, is maybe a topic that requires additional study.

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But yeah, so the answer is, are they pollinators?

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Some of them are, but a lot of them aren't.

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That's for sure.

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to us, are just a nuisance.

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And the role they play is substantial and sometimes not pretty.

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A lot of our parasites and fighting insects and things like that, they do play an important role in ecosystems, but the role isn't pretty.

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Think about ticks, for instance, in many northern places.

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They play a huge role in regulating moose and deer populations.

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It's not pretty, but what they do is they control animal populations through the negative effects that they have on those animals, which can cause mortality in those animals.

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not pretty, but there certainly is a role.

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Now, there are some organisms that certainly serve a role that I would rather not have them around me.

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I don't really enjoy having mosquitoes around my house.

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I recognize they play some sort of role, but they can do that somewhere else.

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I will second that.

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It's all about that balance in the ecosystem and keeping things in check because when it gets out of balance, that's when we get problems.

00:05:15 Speaker 2

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And my favorite, I have to admit, it is my favorite.

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I have been in love with lightning

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bugs or fireflies forever.

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Because in my book, oh my gosh, in my mind, they're connected to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star for some reason.

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Oh my gosh, absolutely.

00:05:30 Speaker 1

So they always come out the same time that the daylilies and the lightning bugs and the 4th of July came out in my world in southern Indiana.

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And so those things are always connected to me.

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The lightning bugs really do play a role in our ecosystem.

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Absolutely, they certainly do.

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Do they help keep balance?

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Are they just something out there?

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Or is the population the deep

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of them signaling something.

00:05:52 Speaker 2

That's a very good question.

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And to be totally honest, there's not a lot of great data on the actual ecological role of fireflies in regulating other organisms.

00:06:02 Speaker 2

But general knowledge, at least the idea is that fireflies are probably controlling at least some number of agricultural pests and other, just like backyard garden pests.

00:06:14 Speaker 2

And one of the reasons, so think about the adult firefly, the one that you see, they're little beetles, they have soft four-winged

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They're kind of soft-bodied little beetles that are flashing and they're very beautiful.

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But an adult firefly in that form only lives like that a few weeks.

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They spend most of their life, which is two or three years at times, as a larva.

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And they spend a little bit of time as an egg right at the beginning and a little bit of time as a pupa in the middle.

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But the vast majority of their life is spent as a larva.

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And the reason why this is so relevant to what we're discussing here is a firefly larva.

00:06:48 Speaker 2

It's like a little armored grub.

00:06:51 Speaker 2

Yeah, I'm painting an ugly picture of it, and they're a little bit weird looking.

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But imagine like a little grub-type insect.

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Oftentimes, they're pink or brown.

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But unlike your sort of typical grub that you might see in your lawn, their legs are really well adapted for walking.

00:07:07 Speaker 2

So they've got this sort of long grub-like body, but they're fairly well-arned, almost like a pill bug.

00:07:13 Speaker 2

And they've got these dirty little legs, six little legs that they use to run across the surface of the soil.

00:07:18 Speaker 2

And here's the real relevant part.

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They've got these little

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mouthparts that are very good at grabbing onto soft-bodied invertebrates and basically sucking the juices out of them.

00:07:28 Speaker 2

And as it turns out, it's very weird to wrap your head around some of the firefly larvae's favorite things to eat.

00:07:34 Speaker 2

And these firefly larvae are not that big.

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They love eating slugs and snails.

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And they're very good at it.

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Yeah, it's crazy.

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I'm wrapping my head around this.

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I mean, I'm a suburban gardener, and slugs just drive me nuts.

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They just absolutely are terrorizing my strawberry plants right now.

00:07:57 Speaker 2

So I could certainly use with a few more fireflies, even in my own yard.

00:08:01 Speaker 2

We have some, but I wouldn't mind having a few more to keep these slugs in check.

00:08:05 Speaker 2

We don't know the actual extent that these fireflies control these kinds of pests, but it's assumed that they do at least some amount of that because these little firefly larvae are running

00:08:17 Speaker 2

around eating snails and slugs.

00:08:20 Speaker 2

And I also have to say, as a somewhat of an aside, just because firefly larvae are so darn cool, firefly larvae, just like the adults, actually produce a faint glow.

00:08:30 Speaker 2

And in many species, the eggs glow and the pupae also often glow.

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So fireflies, they're just built to glow.

00:08:36 Speaker 2

So very cool life history on these guys.

00:08:39 Speaker 1

Going from the larva to a fly stage always amazes me.

00:08:43 Speaker 1

I had no idea that they would be able to glow all the time.

00:08:47 Speaker 2

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00:08:48 Speaker 1

I actually saw a firefly larva picture for the first time.

00:08:52 Speaker 1

I don't think I've ever seen a firefly larva.

00:08:55 Speaker 1

I don't want to say that they're ugly, but that's not what I would have expected this beautiful little firefly with his little eye spot looking thing to look like as a larva.

00:09:03 Speaker 2

00:09:04 Speaker 2

00:09:05 Speaker 2

They're kind of scary as a larva, especially if you're a slug.

00:09:08 Speaker 1

00:09:08 Speaker 1

Yeah, they're going to come along and eat you.

00:09:10 Speaker 1

So they glow and they glow, you said, in the egg form and the larva form.

00:09:14 Speaker 1

And then most of us who are on this side, the

00:09:17 Speaker 1

east side of the Mississippi know what they look like.

00:09:20 Speaker 1

I was surprised that they did not exist in California.

00:09:23 Speaker 1

My husband spent a lot of his life there and they just aren't there.

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I've spent very little time there.

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Unfortunately, my understanding is they do have some members of that family there, but I don't think they have the wide array of displaying species like we have in the east.

00:09:37 Speaker 1

Is that due to or could that be due to the dry, arid conditions that the larvae may not be able to find their food source?

00:09:44 Speaker 2

That would certainly be my assumption.

00:09:46 Speaker 2

One thing about

00:09:47 Speaker 2

fireflies is they're very tied to moisture.

00:09:50 Speaker 2

So drying conditions and increased heat are two things that our study actually showed that are really bad for fireflies and tend to be associated with low firefly abundance and factors related to fireflies.

00:10:02 Speaker 1

You had said that a firefly can spend its time as a larva for up to two years.

00:10:08 Speaker 1

Did I get that right?

00:10:09 Speaker 2

00:10:10 Speaker 2

Yeah, I think there are some species that are possibly even longer than that.

00:10:13 Speaker 1

That's amazing.

00:10:14 Speaker 1

And in a few days as a firefly.

00:10:16 Speaker 2

Yep, that's right.

00:10:17 Speaker 2

Usually three weeks is kind of what you often read.

00:10:20 Speaker 1

00:10:20 Speaker 1

So most of their time, they are ground dwellers.

00:10:23 Speaker 1

Oftentimes in our colloquial nature here in Maryland, I'm sure other people have heard this, that spraying different weed killers or pesticides can have an impact on the population.

00:10:33 Speaker 2

00:10:34 Speaker 1

Okay, fill me in because it seems I'm getting it now.

00:10:36 Speaker 1

I didn't realize they spent two years on the ground.

00:10:38 Speaker 2

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

00:10:39 Speaker 2

They're very tied to the soil and what's happening at the soil.

00:10:42 Speaker 2

I think the effects of herbicide are poorly understood with fireflies.

00:10:47 Speaker 2

actually tested in our paper pesticides.

00:10:49 Speaker 2

And it seems like in some contexts, they can be somewhat robust to certain pesticide application regimes.

00:10:56 Speaker 2

But yeah, certainly really a heavy application of pesticides, especially in suburban backyards and places like that would have a huge negative effect on fireflies.

00:11:05 Speaker 2

Certainly, yeah, because they're so tied to the ground, so tied to the soil, and you only see them for a couple of weeks and you might think, oh, well, maybe I'll spray pesticides during the time when the fireflies aren't out.

00:11:16 Speaker 2

Well, the thing is,

00:11:17 Speaker 2

they're out all the time running around on the surface of the soil.

00:11:20 Speaker 2

In Turkey, in some areas, potentially even in Maryland, a warm day in winter, you can go out and see firefly larvae running across the soil.

00:11:28 Speaker 2

I've actually found early spring when it's starting to get warm before there's a lot of herbaceous vegetation growing on the surface of the soil.

00:11:36 Speaker 2

A lot at nighttime, just no flashlight, nothing.

00:11:38 Speaker 2

Just walk around in the dark on like a woodland trail.

00:11:41 Speaker 2

You can actually train your eyes to see the little glowing firefly larvae running around on the surface of the soil.

00:11:47 Speaker 2

Yeah, they're out there and they're affected by these things.

00:11:50 Speaker 1

I guess for some reason I thought that the pesticides would affect the things that are flying, but that's really not true.

00:11:57 Speaker 1

They're affecting the things in the ground and the soil.

00:11:59 Speaker 1

How do the pesticides actually affect the larvae?

00:12:02 Speaker 2

I will admit that I know a lot less about that.

00:12:05 Speaker 2

Some of my collaborators, and that's one of the things you do in science, you bring in people to collaborate with who are experts on a particular thing, and some of my collaborators, especially those at Penn State, they know a lot more about the physiology

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In fact, they're actually studying that at Penn State, rearing fireflies in captivity and subjecting them to different pesticides.

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So I'll fully admit that I don't understand the physiology of it myself.

00:12:28 Speaker 1

It sounds like we need to talk with Penn State.

00:12:30 Speaker 1

We need a collaboration here.

00:12:31 Speaker 2

Yes, absolutely.

00:12:33 Speaker 1

Their habitat, they're in this moist area on the soil.

00:12:36 Speaker 1

They're spending up to two years.

00:12:38 Speaker 1

We're a little more there.

00:12:39 Speaker 1

Habitat loss can lead to a lot of the effects that we're seeing in the loss of the fireflies.

00:12:44 Speaker 2

00:12:45 Speaker 1

Does that mean drought or does that mean

00:12:47 Speaker 1

mean, we're building houses in different places?

00:12:50 Speaker 1

Are we paving over things?

00:12:51 Speaker 1

What does that look like?

00:12:52 Speaker 2

Yeah, so it's one of those things you're hitting on all the parts.

00:12:56 Speaker 2

I like to think of what fireflies are experiencing, as with so many other organisms, the death by a thousand cuts.

00:13:02 Speaker 2

And we see this in vertebrate wildlife, and we see it in insects too, where there are certain things that stress them out, like destruction of habitat, or application of pesticides, or increasing global temperatures, whatever.

00:13:14 Speaker 2

They can handle one or two of those things.

00:13:17 Speaker 2

00:13:17 Speaker 2

start hitting these organisms with stressor after stressor after stressor, something's going to give.

00:13:23 Speaker 2

So they need to have moisture.

00:13:25 Speaker 2

And to your question, yes, drought is a serious problem for fire plants, but also so is flooding, right?

00:13:30 Speaker 2

If you have an animal, the little tiny animal that's associated with the surface of the soil, and it's used to being moist, but dry, if you will, soil, it's on land, and it's suddenly under six inches of water, that little guy's not doing too hot.

00:13:44 Speaker 2

00:13:45 Speaker 2

So with soil moisture,

00:13:47 Speaker 2

drought, pesticides, conversion of natural land cover to anthropogenic land cover.

00:13:53 Speaker 2

That's a fancy term for anything made by people, usually buildings, streets, agricultural fields, that sort of thing.

00:14:00 Speaker 2

I will say we did find that how many fireflies do okay in an agricultural setting, especially pastures and hay fields and things like that.

00:14:08 Speaker 2

But there are probably some specialist firefly species that do not tolerate that and some generalist ones that do okay there.

00:14:15 Speaker 2

But yeah, I'm somewhat rambling a little

00:14:17 Speaker 2

little bit here.

00:14:18 Speaker 2

But yeah, all of these individual threats can act on fireflies.

00:14:22 Speaker 2

And we don't know to what extent populations can handle one or two of these things.

00:14:26 Speaker 2

But we feel pretty good that when you hit them with threat after threat after threat, something's got to give and you're going to lose your fireflies.

00:14:33 Speaker 1

In the past little bit within the United States, we've had some pretty massive floods, which we've learned will affect them.

00:14:38 Speaker 1

But we've also had wildfires, lots of wildfires in different places.

00:14:43 Speaker 1

That would affect the larvae.

00:14:45 Speaker 1

But what about the eggs?

00:14:47 Speaker 2

Oh, absolutely.

00:14:48 Speaker 2

So in the East, where we actually have more fireflies, this is not studied at all to my knowledge.

00:14:55 Speaker 2

Maybe there's a paper out there.

00:14:56 Speaker 2

I'm certainly not aware of it.

00:14:58 Speaker 2

But if I were a betting man, I would say proper application of fire could potentially benefit fireflies.

00:15:04 Speaker 2

And the reason I say that is in Eastern North America, we're in a place that was historically dominated by fire or at least some ecosystems.

00:15:12 Speaker 2

So I'm here in Eastern Kentucky, we have a lot of oak forests here and oak

00:15:17 Speaker 2

Oaks are fire adapted trees.

00:15:19 Speaker 2

We have a lot of pine forests and those are very fire adapted.

00:15:22 Speaker 2

Places like Maryland and Pennsylvania have things like scrub oak, pitch pine barrens that are absolutely fire driven systems.

00:15:30 Speaker 2

Now there are very moist systems too that are probably didn't get burned very often.

00:15:34 Speaker 2

But I have a hunch that the proper application of prescribed fire in a way that mimics the historical fire regimes potentially benefit fire flames.

00:15:42 Speaker 2

Now, of course, of course, a fire in the moment is going to kill many fireflies, but you're rejuvenating an ecosystem potentially with that fire.

00:15:51 Speaker 2

So it's tough to say.

00:15:53 Speaker 2

It's one of those things that would require a study to examine it.

00:15:56 Speaker 2

I could see it going either way.

00:15:58 Speaker 2

My hunch is that potentially fire could benefit Eastern fireflies, at least in certain contexts, but it would be a cool study.

00:16:05 Speaker 2

It could be absolutely proven incorrect.

00:16:07 Speaker 1

We're going to keep watching because a hunch goes to a hypothesis goes to a study

00:16:12 Speaker 1

And then we come back.

00:16:13 Speaker 2

00:16:14 Speaker 2

Yeah, that sounds great.

00:16:15 Speaker 1

When we come back, we'll talk more about this enlightening conversation.

00:16:20 Speaker 1

Join me, Rayshan Mayer, from Mariah Bellemanor Kennel, for our new adventure, Living Life Tales Up podcast, combining everyday life with what goes on at the kennel and farm, a bit of humor, some ideas, and some positive happy bubbles.

00:16:32 Speaker 1

We're living tails up, nose down, and staying on track.

00:16:35 Speaker 1

We hope to see you on Living Life Tales Up for 5 to 10 minutes worth of happy, happy bubbles shooting out there in the atmosphere.

00:16:42 Speaker 1

00:16:45 Speaker 1

Welcome back to Raising Connections.

00:16:46 Speaker 1

Today, we're talking about lightning bugs.

00:16:49 Speaker 1

Light pollution is a form of pollution that people don't often think about.

00:16:54 Speaker 1

Can you give us the definition of that?

00:16:55 Speaker 2

Yeah, so broadly speaking, light pollution is just excessive light produced by people.

00:17:01 Speaker 2

And it's a weird kind of pollution because in theory, you can turn it off in an instant, but in practice, it's not quite that easy.

00:17:10 Speaker 2

So that's the definition of it.

00:17:12 Speaker 2

affects fireflies is fairly intuitive, I would say, right?

00:17:16 Speaker 2

These fireflies, they're using their flashing light to communicate.

00:17:21 Speaker 2

And many people don't think about why is a firefly flashing its light?

00:17:27 Speaker 2

Well, that's central to how a firefly reproduces.

00:17:30 Speaker 2

Now, with many insects, they rely on pheromones.

00:17:34 Speaker 2

So they release these chemicals into the air, and they have sensitive antennae, and they can basically smell the members of their same species

00:17:42 Speaker 2

because they smell the pheromones and they say, Oh, that's my same species.

00:17:46 Speaker 2

I'm going to go find that individual and mate with it and we will continue the species.

00:17:50 Speaker 2

Well, fireflies, and don't get me wrong, many fireflies do use pheromones, but one of the primary ways a firefly finds its mate is using that light, that little flashing light.

00:18:00 Speaker 2

Every species of firefly, at least all the flashing ones, and there are some that don't flash, all the flashing fireflies have a unique signal in the flash.

00:18:11 Speaker 2

00:18:12 Speaker 2

two flashes and then a pause?

00:18:14 Speaker 2

Or does it do a J-shaped flash?

00:18:17 Speaker 2

Is the flash yellow?

00:18:19 Speaker 2

00:18:19 Speaker 2

Does it appear blue at a distance?

00:18:21 Speaker 2

These are all like secret messages that the fireflies are telling each other so that they can find a mate and reproduce.

00:18:30 Speaker 2

Oftentimes, the females will be on the ground or on some sort of vegetation, varying by species, of course, and in many cases, the males will be flying around.

00:18:39 Speaker 2

They'll be displaying their particular secret signature

00:18:42 Speaker 2

flash, if you will, and the females will respond in kind and they'll reproduce.

00:18:46 Speaker 2

But if you've got a lot of light pollution, it's really hard for those fireflies to use that flashing signal to find a mate, just like how finding a friend in a crowded music concert by yelling is going to be difficult because it's so loud.

00:19:01 Speaker 2

In the same way, the fireflies find it really difficult to flash their special signal and find a mate when there's a lot of light noise, if you will, to use the term

00:19:12 Speaker 2

toys in that context.

00:19:14 Speaker 1

Is man-made light the only sort of light pollution that would change?

00:19:20 Speaker 1

There was a movie that Disney put out a while back, and I believe it was The Princess and the Frog, and one of the characters was Raymond or Ray.

00:19:28 Speaker 1

He was a Cajun firefly, and he was so in love with the Evening Star.

00:19:33 Speaker 2

00:19:34 Speaker 1

But the light pollution actually keeps the lightning bugs from communicating, where the Evening Star, he was just a little Mr.

00:19:44 Speaker 2

Yeah, I've not had the pleasure of seeing that, but my understanding is that stars do not interfere with their ability to communicate.

00:19:53 Speaker 2

Now, again, that would be an interesting study as well.

00:19:56 Speaker 2

Are fireflies able to find mates better on a cloudy night than a starry night?

00:20:01 Speaker 2

I would assume not.

00:20:03 Speaker 2

I would assume that they are adapted to tolerate natural light, but yeah, it'd be worth studying, but I would imagine that they're probably resilient to natural

00:20:12 Speaker 2

sources of light, like the moon and kind of stars.

00:20:15 Speaker 1

00:20:16 Speaker 1

I would think maybe the northern lights being too south for us.

00:20:19 Speaker 1

00:20:19 Speaker 1

It was an interesting thought.

00:20:20 Speaker 1

And Raymond, he loved his northern star named Evangela.

00:20:23 Speaker 2

No, I really like that idea, though.

00:20:25 Speaker 2

It's kind of a cute idea.

00:20:28 Speaker 1

That one just stuck with me.

00:20:29 Speaker 1

You said a jay flashing light or the blue lights are what is 1 variety or one lightning bug?

00:20:36 Speaker 1

Let's go with one lightning bug.

00:20:37 Speaker 1

Are they able to change their message and the shape of their light and the color of their light?

00:20:42 Speaker 1

00:20:42 Speaker 1

00:20:43 Speaker 2

It's species specific.

00:20:44 Speaker 2

So some of those examples I gave, the J-shaped light is one that's commonly called the Big Dipper firefly.

00:20:51 Speaker 2

And it sort of, it illuminates its light, it turns the light on, it drops a little bit, then it flies up and ends higher than it started.

00:20:59 Speaker 2

So it creates a little J shape.

00:21:00 Speaker 2

The blue firefly, which just turns on its little light and it just kind of creeps flying very low to the ground, is the blue ghost firefly.

00:21:09 Speaker 2

And apparently it's not actually blue when you

00:21:12 Speaker 2

scrutinize it, but to the human eye, at a certain distance, it appears blue, and it's this sort of eerie-looking, little blue, glowing thing that creeps through the understory of forests in southern and central Appalachia.

00:21:25 Speaker 2

But yeah, a single species cannot change its flashing pattern.

00:21:29 Speaker 2

And in fact, it wouldn't want to, because let's say the Big Dipper firefly, it makes that little J shape.

00:21:34 Speaker 2

A female Big Dipper firefly, that J shape is what really gets her going.

00:21:41 Speaker 2

So if you want to

00:21:42 Speaker 2

a mate, you better make sure and you're making that little jig.

00:21:46 Speaker 1

00:21:47 Speaker 1

Okay, so that's the flash and the bang, huh?

00:21:50 Speaker 2

Yeah, that's right.

00:21:51 Speaker 2

00:21:53 Speaker 1

Is the flash true bioluminescence or is it something else?

00:21:57 Speaker 2

Yes, it is a living organism that is illuminating.

00:22:01 Speaker 2

And what the animal does, it mixes a series of chemicals in its abdomen and when those chemicals come together, they produce light.

00:22:09 Speaker 2

So it's a chemical reaction in the animal's

00:22:12 Speaker 2

body, but it's able to control the release of those chemicals in the flashing.

00:22:17 Speaker 2

That's why when, sadly, when you hit a firefly with your car and you see it on your windshield, it just blows consistently because all those chemicals are just mixed up.

00:22:26 Speaker 1

Is that the same sort of technology when you have the light sticks and you break them and shake them?

00:22:31 Speaker 2

I doubt it's the same chemicals, but I think it's the same general idea.

00:22:35 Speaker 2

Yeah, where you kind of have separated chemicals and you can bring them together by snapping the stick.

00:22:40 Speaker 2

I think it's similar enough.

00:22:42 Speaker 1

Similar enough.

00:22:43 Speaker 1

But it's not something of that physical nature.

00:22:46 Speaker 1

It's just a reaction that the insect does on its own, much like a sword or muscles reacting.

00:22:52 Speaker 1

It's just a part of their normal release.

00:22:54 Speaker 2

Yes, but I think so far as an insect can do anything consciously, they're thought to be able to control it fairly directly.

00:23:02 Speaker 1

00:23:02 Speaker 2

In fact, there's even more crazy.

00:23:04 Speaker 2

So these fireflies are all signaling to each other using these special flashes.

00:23:08 Speaker 2

There are some species of fireflies that eat other fireflies.

00:23:12 Speaker 2

which is kind of interesting, especially given that many fireflies don't feed at all or feed very little as adults.

00:23:18 Speaker 2

There are some that feed on other fireflies, and what they do is rather mean, if you will, nefarious.

00:23:25 Speaker 2

They can flash just like a regular firefly can, and they will flash like a female firefly.

00:23:31 Speaker 2

And this male comes in thinking he's got a hot date, and this sneaky, predatory firefly is pretending to be a female, catfishing the male, if you will, and he comes in to have a date.

00:23:42 Speaker 2

And this predatory firefly grabs him and eats him.

00:23:45 Speaker 1

00:23:46 Speaker 1

00:23:47 Speaker 1

That's intraspecies.

00:23:48 Speaker 1

That's not any good.

00:23:49 Speaker 2

It's dastardly.

00:23:51 Speaker 1

It's dastardly.

00:23:52 Speaker 1

That's just catfishing.

00:23:53 Speaker 1

00:23:54 Speaker 1

One of the things we used to do as a kid probably isn't the best, but we had a great time doing it.

00:23:59 Speaker 1

We had a creek.

00:24:00 Speaker 1

We had an area where we had some water and we had bullfrogs.

00:24:02 Speaker 1

And we used to take the fireflies and we would catch them and we would feed them to the bullfrogs because we like to see the throat of the bullfrog expand and light up.

00:24:12 Speaker 2

00:24:12 Speaker 1

You know, it's kind of, you know, talking about nefarious, those kids, what can I say?

00:24:16 Speaker 2

00:24:17 Speaker 1

But what we learned down at the creek feeding the lightning bugs to the bullfrogs was that lightning bugs didn't taste very good.

00:24:25 Speaker 2

No, no, they don't.

00:24:27 Speaker 1

00:24:27 Speaker 1

And so, you know, kids do all kinds of things, but that bioluminescence is just so attractive.

00:24:33 Speaker 1

And the fact that you can see them through the various parts of their lives with some of the illuminescence in their larva form and in the egg form, how interesting.

00:24:42 Speaker 2

00:24:43 Speaker 1

Are there things in our environment that are causing the lightning bugs to change?

00:24:48 Speaker 1

Or maybe I'm getting older and I'm losing things.

00:24:51 Speaker 1

To me, it looks like there are areas where there's a lot of lightning bugs.

00:24:55 Speaker 1

There don't seem to be as many as there were when I was younger.

00:24:58 Speaker 2

00:24:59 Speaker 2

And so this is one of those things that's a really tough area of inquiry, but it is widely believed in both common knowledge and in science that firefly populations are declining.

00:25:12 Speaker 2

I will fully admit that the evidence for this in the scientific literature, like the direct empirical evidence, is not great.

00:25:20 Speaker 2

But there are so many reports of these firefly declines, I think many scientists are inclined to trust that.

00:25:27 Speaker 2

Especially as conservation biologists, we're trained to respond to crises.

00:25:32 Speaker 2

That's really the whole field of conservation biology is born in like responding to crisis.

00:25:38 Speaker 2

So I think many of us tend to believe that's the case.

00:25:41 Speaker 2

00:25:42 Speaker 2

The evidence is a little shaky in the literature, but there's just not great data sets on fireflies long-term.

00:25:48 Speaker 2

That's the real problem.

00:25:49 Speaker 2

But yeah, it's widely believed for that to be true.

00:25:52 Speaker 2

And more than likely, that's related to some of the things that we found in the paper, where we're increasing the number of pesticides, or even if we're not increasing the number of pesticides, more importantly, the toxicity of the pesticides we do use is greater.

00:26:05 Speaker 2

We've got things like neonicotinoid pesticides that are really, really potent.

00:26:09 Speaker 2

We also have increased urbanization

00:26:12 Speaker 2

And spread of impervious surfaces.

00:26:15 Speaker 2

So in our study, we showed, hey, fireflies are really sensitive to having a lot of impervious surfaces around.

00:26:21 Speaker 2

And when I say impervious surface, I mean things that water can't penetrate.

00:26:24 Speaker 2

So like buildings, like roofs of buildings, parking lots, sidewalks, roads, anything like that, grocery stores, all of that stuff is going to have a negative effect on fireflies.

00:26:35 Speaker 2

Land conversion, so taking things like forests and converting it into corn fields.

00:26:40 Speaker 2

These are all things that are going

00:26:42 Speaker 2

to have negative effects on fireflies.

00:26:44 Speaker 2

You may not completely eliminate them altogether, but maybe you reduce the population by 50 or 60% or, you know, I just kind of made those numbers up, but you can see big reductions in the number of fireflies.

00:26:56 Speaker 2

And I see that in my own yard.

00:26:58 Speaker 2

I grew up in the suburbs of Battle Creek, Michigan.

00:27:01 Speaker 2

I used to have just scores of fireflies in our little backyard.

00:27:04 Speaker 2

And now in similar areas, you might only see one or two.

00:27:09 Speaker 1

With all of the changes, when you were describing the impervious surfaces, my mind went back to our earlier conversation about the firefly larva needing something moist and wet.

00:27:20 Speaker 1

Is it because impervious surfaces dry out that they're damaging?

00:27:24 Speaker 2

00:27:25 Speaker 2

Yes, absolutely.

00:27:26 Speaker 2

They need green vegetation.

00:27:28 Speaker 2

There's no plants growing out of an impervious surface.

00:27:30 Speaker 2

So aside from, you know, the occasional dandelion through a crack in the sidewalk, for the most part, those impervious surfaces offer nothing for the fireflies.

00:27:39 Speaker 2

potentially even degrade the areas around them.

00:27:42 Speaker 2

The water cannot infiltrate them very effectively, so it's probably causing flooding.

00:27:46 Speaker 2

It's causing all kinds of other negative effects to the areas around those impervious surfaces.

00:27:51 Speaker 2

So yeah, we find that the fireflies are really sensitive to that.

00:27:54 Speaker 1

When you talked about the dandelions and the plants and the vegetation, is that because they act as umbrellas and hold the moisture to the soil so that the slugs and the other factors that the fireflies eat can come to that area and that makes the habitat?

00:28:07 Speaker 2

00:28:08 Speaker 2

00:28:09 Speaker 2

fireflies, they live on the soil and on vegetation.

00:28:13 Speaker 2

And without soil and vegetation, that is the base of that entire ecosystem.

00:28:17 Speaker 2

If you don't have soil, exposed soil, and you don't have plants, and you don't have leaf litter, and you don't have the things that an ecosystem is made from, you can't have fireflies.

00:28:26 Speaker 2

It's as easy as that.

00:28:27 Speaker 1

I don't know how many times as a kid and as an adult, and now I find myself with older children, I still set out and I make wishes on lightning bugs.

00:28:35 Speaker 1

And without lightning bugs, there would be no wishes.

00:28:38 Speaker 2

Oh my gosh, that's

00:28:39 Speaker 2

a very beautiful and sobering thought in light of these declines.

00:28:43 Speaker 1

The conservation of it.

00:28:45 Speaker 1

Does conservation mean we give one thing up for another, or is there a balance in conservation?

00:28:52 Speaker 2

Oh, I absolutely believe there's a balance.

00:28:55 Speaker 2

Some can view it as a zero-sum game, but I don't necessarily believe that's the case.

00:29:00 Speaker 2

And oftentimes, and sure, sometimes sacrifices need to be made, but I don't think it always has to be quite that black and white.

00:29:08 Speaker 2

00:29:09 Speaker 2

certain practices that can be implemented that are not difficult and can have a huge effect.

00:29:15 Speaker 2

Now, if you don't care about fireflies, then yeah, maybe those practices are just slightly annoying to you for no benefit.

00:29:21 Speaker 2

But for those who are interested in fireflies and insects and wild sorts of things, it may be a very small sacrifice, if you will, or a small price to pay to, let's say, leave some of the leaf litter in your backyard so that the fireflies have a place to forage and the larvae and the eggs

00:29:39 Speaker 2

have a place to overwinter?

00:29:40 Speaker 1

That's the best reason I can come up with to leave some leaf litter down.

00:29:43 Speaker 1

It's not just fertilizer, it's firefly houses.

00:29:46 Speaker 2

Oh my gosh, absolutely.

00:29:47 Speaker 2

00:29:48 Speaker 2

I'm a little biased, of course, but I basically leave all the leaf litter on our property in fall.

00:29:53 Speaker 2

Now, sure, I'll rake it into the piles.

00:29:55 Speaker 2

We've got sort of the edge of our yard and I'll kind of break it out into there, but absolutely, it's biodegradable anyway.

00:30:01 Speaker 1

Thank you for coming and talking about one of my favorite insects, the fireflies.

00:30:05 Speaker 1

Summer just wouldn't be the same without them.

00:30:07 Speaker 1

If we want to contact

00:30:09 Speaker 1

you or find out more information.

00:30:10 Speaker 1

Where should we go?

00:30:11 Speaker 2

There's a couple of places.

00:30:12 Speaker 2

Check out the University of Kentucky Forestry and Natural Resources.

00:30:16 Speaker 2

00:30:17 Speaker 2

I'm happy to talk about fireflies via e-mail, as well as check out the Penn State Center for Insect Biodiversity.

00:30:24 Speaker 2

And I'd also plug one of my collaborators' big websites called Beescape, B-E-E-S-C-A-P-E.

00:30:31 Speaker 2

If you just type Beescape into Google, you'll find it.

00:30:33 Speaker 2

It's designed originally for bees, but it can tell you a lot about the potential pesticides and habitat quality for a variety of insects.

00:30:40 Speaker 2

Anywhere in the U.S., you can click on your own house, and it'll give you scores for the floral resources for bees, the pesticide loads that are expected in that area, all kinds of cool information there.

00:30:50 Speaker 1

00:30:51 Speaker 1

Thank you for coming and being part of us.

00:30:53 Speaker 2

Thank you very much.

00:30:54 Speaker 2

You have a great day.

00:30:56 Speaker 1

I hope the connections we've raised today stay with you as you engage your community through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture.

00:31:03 Speaker 1

Join me again next week.

00:31:04 Speaker 1

We'll make some more connections.

00:31:07 Speaker 1

This program is a production of Raising Connections Media Company, hosted and produced by Rashan Mayer and edited and mixed by Robin Temple.

00:31:14 Speaker 1