Resolving the heading-direction ambiguity in vertical-beam radar observations of migrating insects.

ABSTRACT: Each year, massive numbers of insects fly across the continents at heights of hundreds of meters, carried by the wind, bringing both environmental benefits and serious economic and social costs. To investigate the insects' flight behavior and their response to winds, entomological radar has proved to be a particularly valuable tool; however, its observations of insect orientation are ambiguous with regard to the head/tail direction, and this greatly hinders interpretation of the migrants' flight behavior.We have developed two related methods of using wind data to resolve the head/tail ambiguity, and we have compared their outputs with those from simply assigning the heading direction to be that which is closer to the track direction. We applied all three methods to observations of Australi

SUBMITTER: Hao Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6540839 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature