Differential predation across urban and rural sites in the white lined sphinx moth, Hyles lineata

For eons, the largest abiotic variation in an organism’s environment was the light cycle, however, now in the Anthropocene, organisms must contend with built environments and sensory pollution, such as artificial light at night and noise. These anthropic differences alter the environment and concomitantly animal behavior and predator-prey interactions. We aimed to quantify differences in predator-prey dynamics between urban and natural areas across the day/night cycle in the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas. We hypothesized that predation of white-lined sphinx moths (Hyles lineata) differed between urban and rural sites dependent upon time. We predicted predation rates are higher at night in urban sites but higher during daytime in rural sites. Over 300 hundred artificial paper-winged and clay-bodied models that matched the spectra of H. lineata and 14 camera traps were deployed each in El Paso, TX and a remote West Texas site (Indio Mountain Research Station). Models were checked during twilight for 72 hours to determine survival rates using Cox proportional hazards regression. We analyzed camera trap data to quantify predator communities across sites and time. These findings demonstrate altering predator-prey dynamics in important ecosystem service providers (Lepidoptera pollinators) due to urban environments, which is alarming as the urban footprint is predicted to grow between 78% and 176% by 2050.