What method uses light to attract and sample night-flying organisms?

The method that employs light to attract and sample night-flying organisms is light traps. Light traps are specifically designed to take advantage of the natural behavior of nocturnal insects and other organisms that are drawn to artificial light sources. When these organisms approach the light, they can be collected either directly in a container or by using a mechanism that captures them as they are attracted to the light source.

This technique is widely used in ecological studies to monitor insect populations, assess biodiversity, and conduct inventory surveys. The effectiveness of light traps lies in their ability to attract a diverse range of species, providing valuable data on the presence and abundance of night-flying organisms, which might otherwise be difficult to sample using other methods.

In contrast, beating trays involve dislodging insects from plants and collecting them on a tray below, while kick sampling is a method used for collecting organisms in aquatic environments by disturbing the substrate and capturing those that are released. Capture-mark-recapture refers to a population estimation technique where individuals are marked, released, and later recaptured to assess population size, rather than being specifically aimed at attracting and sampling organisms using light.