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Many scientists see solar eclipses as a rare opportunity to corroborate anecdotal reports by studying how nature responds, or does not, to a few minutes of twilight during the day. . That’s why during the last total solar eclipse that crossed the United States in 2017, research teams across the country conducted a plethora of studies on the behavior of plants and animals.
Some of these scientists have discovered that when the sun disappears, insects, birds, and plants appear to adopt more nocturnal patterns. Case in point: Scientists in multiple states have reported that fireflies have begun blinking, and a research team in Idaho captured two species of voles that are typically active at night.
Meanwhile, bat researchers in Georgia noticed a slight increase in bat numbers, but were not convinced that the eclipse affected their behavior. The night after the eclipse is more active than the nights before and after.Beetles were flying around normally. in South Carolina.
It is almost impossible to understand how a solar eclipse affects nature as a whole. That’s because eclipses don’t follow one of the most basic rules of science: replication. They do not occur regularly in the same location. Lengths vary. They occur at different times of the day and in different seasons.
“A lot of what we found in the literature was just a curiosity. It’s interesting because it happens sometimes, but it’s generally not useful information about animal behavior,” said Professor of Honey Bee Biology at the University of Alberta in Canada. said Olaf Rüppel, a scientist who studies
And while solar eclipses are great times to observe the natural world, there is also a potential observer effect. People who might normally be at school, work, or simply distracted are watching and listening carefully, so what they see in response to the eclipse can include: There is a possibility thatit’s normal behavior A fugitive notice on a typical day.
Adam Hartstone Rose, a professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University, led a study at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina, on how animals responded to the 2017 solar eclipse.
“A total solar eclipse occurs once every 375 years at any point on Earth, which means that what you’re learning now won’t be usable again in the future, and that certainly applies to animals,” says Heartstone Rose. he said.
“But it’s a unifying event. We’re all in this experience together.” he said, adding during the April solar eclipse: “We’ll all be thinking about communicating with animals and how they experience it.”
Experiments with nature
Research on animal behavior during solar eclipses tends to fall into two categories. Some biologists approaching totality may plan studies to see how the eclipse affects their favorite creatures, whether it’s bees or chimpanzees. Others are trying to get the public to capture data and make observations across pathways that scientists can use to identify broad patterns.
For example, the NASA-supported Eclipse Soundscapes project collected audio data and observations from hundreds of people during the April solar eclipse, repeating with a little more rigor a citizen science study of animal responses to the 1932 solar eclipse. It’s a schedule.
In a 2017 Zoo Animal Research team study, Hartstone-Rose had researchers systematically observe 17 species, including baboons, flamingos, and Galapagos tortoises.
Most people responded to the spooky darkness in some way, whether by starting a bedtime routine, acting anxious, or mating. The giraffes were munching on lettuce and chewing their cud, huddled near the barn and scampering through the exhibits. The Komodo dragon, which had not moved for a day, ran around its enclosure and climbed the walls.
Heartstone-Rose has been making repeated observations this year at the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas, where she has convened more than 1,000 volunteers across the country to collect records of animal behavior through a project called Solar Eclipse Safari. He is as interested in the unusual behavior of animals as he is in observing them and learning how their experiences affect humans, perhaps expanding the sense of wonder and awe in humans. Masu.
One common report is that birds During the eclipse they go to roost and are quiet. But when a team of Cornell University ornithologists made recordings along an old logging road near the town of Corinna, Maine, for the 1963 solar eclipse, they heard sounds like: persic ollie The goldfinch in the middle of the total plant, along with the hermit crab, Swainson’s thrush, and berry.
“The list of birds heard before, during, and after the eclipse is probably unlike any other,” they wrote in a summary of their observations.
Researchers who monitored flying insects and birds through a weather radar network in the 50 minutes before and after the 2017 totality found that although the skies became eerily quiet, there was an interesting uptick in activity immediately after the totality. I discovered that The researchers suspected it was some kind of insect reacting to the sudden darkness, but the birds may have become confused and stopped.
Cecilia Nilsson, a biologist at Sweden’s Lund University, said: “Some previous studies have shown that insects respond immediately to light cues, but birds respond by saying, “What’s going on?” It has been shown that it will.” She says, “Wholeness lasts only a few minutes, so by the time you realize it, it’s over.”
For bird lovers, the many uncontrollable variables of a solar eclipse can also be a scientific opportunity.
One interesting thing about the 2024 solar eclipse is that it will occur in the spring, in contrast to the North American solar eclipse. Nilsson said the 2017 incident occurred very early in the fall migration season. He said many birds migrate at night and are often more motivated during spring migration, so the sudden darkness could have a different impact this time.
Rupel, a honey bee scientist, was based in North Carolina during the 2017 total solar eclipse. He decided to work with his collaborators to bring some rigor to previous observations about bee behavior.
For example, a crowdsourced compilation of observations of the 1932 total solar eclipse included a report that a swarm of 200 bees displayed “anxiety” in the minutes before the eclipse. Another observer reported that “as darkness increased, fewer bees went out and the returning battalions grew larger.”
Rupel and his colleagues at Clemson University in South Carolina had observers monitor the hive entrance, counting how many bees left the hive and how many returned from foraging trips before, during, and after the hive. Ta. They removed the bees’ honey before a solar eclipse, starving some hives more than others to see if that changed the bees’ willingness to forage.
Researchers have discovered that environmental cues override bees’ own internal clocks, causing them to return to their hives and hunker down at darkness. These findings are consistent with another study showing that bees stopped flying around flowers during totality. However, hives that were stressed by hunger did not completely stop compared to those that were not.
They also conducted a second experiment in which they coated bees with fluorescent powder, released them from the hive, and measured how quickly they returned.
Just before totality, they noticed that the bees were returning faster, as if in a panic.
forest full of trees
Daniel Beverly, a plant ecophysiologist at Indiana University, studied how Wyoming’s sagebrush responded during the 2017 solar eclipse. The last time a total solar eclipse passed over Wyoming was in 1918, but it passed over various parts of the state.
“These plants are 60 to 100 years old, but I’ve never seen darkness in the middle of the day like this,” he said. Scientists found that during totality, photosynthesis dropped sharply and took hours to recover from the shock of the sun, which reappeared minutes later.
This year, Beverly will measure ecological responses to solar eclipses in Indiana forests as part of a long-term project to monitor the flow of carbon, water, and energy through ecosystems.Morgan Monroe State Forest Already the subject of intense scientific scrutiny, scientists can use existing equipment to measure factors such as carbon flux and water movement in white oak, tulip poplar, sassafras, and sugar maple.
Beverley said he is excited to automate as much data collection as possible so he and his team can fully enjoy this short but amazing moment.
“It’s so amazing and life-changing,” Beverly said. “It’s just a sight. We don’t know what effect it has on the human brain.”
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