Migration of animals isn't new. Many animal species migrate in large numbers in search for food. In the UK there is also mass migration. People in the UK see mass insect migration happening.
Mass insect migration is something that is still largely unmonitored. Unlike animal migration in places like Africa, insect migration isn't much studied. More insects migrate yearly than all the animal migrations combined.
Mass insect migration is vital in many ways. Plants rely on insects to transfer pollens and seeds from one place to another. A mass insect migration would greatly help. In southern England there is as much as 3.5 trillion insects that migrate every year.
To track insect migration and the transfer of much biomass, researchers from the University of Exeter and Rothamsted Research have used a specialized radar to follow insect migration. The mass insect migration is much more than the 30 million songbirds which migrate from the UK to Africa.
Dr. Jason Chapman has said that insects have much nutrients, plus that insect migration has not been appreciated as much. Dr. Chapman is from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter's Penryn campus. He compares insect migration to that of great oceanic migration.
Large seasonal differences mark insect migration, according to the Rothamsted Research site. Insects move to the north in spring, while in the fall, they move towards the south. This is because the south is much warmer during the fall, while in spring it is much cooler in the north.
Dr. Gao Hu is a visiting scholar from Nanjing Agricultural University. He has led in analyzing the radar data, as Science Daily reports. He has observed that many of the insects are important to the ecosystem. Insects help in pollination, as well as being a source of food for birds.
Dr. Ka S. Lim is co-author of the study and from the Radar Entomology Unit of the AgroEcology Department at Rothamsted Research. He has that animal migration takes millions of years to make and can be affected by climate condition. Insects are vital to the ecosystem, as people in the UK see the mass insect migration. Temperature does play a role in biodiversity.
