Thursday, November 21 at 7pm. Online.

Insect populations around the world are declining rapidly. But why? While habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change all have something to do with it, Dr. Avalon Owens shows in this talk that light pollution is another important — but too often overlooked— bringer of the insect apocalypse. Light pollution interferes with the development, movement, foraging, courtship, and reproduction of diverse insect species, includingmany that we know and love to see in our gardens. Fortunately, light pollution can be cheaply, easily, and instantly eliminated. Doing so will help ensure that we live in harmony with our insect friends and neighbors for generations to come.

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Dr. Avalon Owens is a research fellow at the Rowland Institute at Harvard. Her research group studies the impact of light pollution on organisms and ecosystems, with a focus on firefly conservation and moth evolution. Avalon holds a B.A. in Integrative Biology from Harvard University, an M.S. in Entomology from National Taiwan University, and a Ph.D. in Biology from Tufts University.

This webinar is sponsored by the Newton Conservators.