Atlas of Butterflies and Diurnal Moths in the Monsoon Tropics of Northern Australia

"Northern Australia is one of few tropical places left on Earth in which biodiversity—and the ecological processes underpinning that biodiversity—is still relatively intact. However, scientific knowledge of that biodiversity is still in its infancy and the region remains a frontier for biological discovery. The butterfly and diurnal moth assemblages of the area, and their intimate associations with vascular plants (and sometimes ants), exemplify these points. However, the opportunity to fill knowledge gaps is quickly closing: proposals for substantial development and exploitation of Australia’s north will inevitably repeat the ecological devastation that has occurred in temperate southern Australia—loss of species, loss of ecological communities, fragmentation of populations, disruption of healthy ecosystem function and so on—all of which will diminish the value of the natural heritage of the region before it is fully understood and appreciated. Written by several experts in the field, the main purpose of this atlas is to compile a comprehensive inventory of the butterflies and diurnal moths of northern Australia to form the scientific baseline against which the extent and direction of change can be assessed in the future. Such information will also assist in identifying the region’s biological assets, to inform policy and management agencies and to set priorities for biodiversity conservation.

Mexican Lepidoptera biodiversity

Being among the most habitat diverse countries in the world (and plant diversity is about 22,000 sp.), Mexico has a Lepidoptera fauna recorded at about 14,385 species but is estimated to be over 22,000 species, if not much higher (some estimates go to 35,000 sp.). High Lepidoptera numbers in Mexico are also due to the large influx of tropical species from the border with Guatemala, as well as Mexican endemics. In this report, the Lepidoptera families are summarized for Mexico, giving known species and what experts estimate to be the true total for each family when all have been described. Many regions of Mexico are still poorly known for smaller moths

Discovery of mass migration and breeding of the paintedlady butterfly Vanessa cardui in the Sub-Sahara: the Europe-Africa migration revisited

Migratory behaviour has repeatedly evolved across taxa as an adaptation to heterogeneity in space and time.However, insect migration is still poorly understood, partly because of the lack of field data. The painted ladybutterfly Vanessa cardui undertakes a long-distance annual migration between Europe and Africa. While springflights from the Maghreb to Europe are well characterized, it is not known how far the European autumnmigrants travel into Africa and whether they massively cross the Sahara Desert. We conducted fieldwork in fourAfrican countries (Chad, Benin, Senegal, and Ethiopia) in autumn and documented southward migrants incentral Chad and abundant breeding sites across the tropical savannah as far south as the Niger River in thewest and the Ethiopian highlands in the east. Given directionality and timing, these migrants probablyoriginated in Europe and crossed the Mediterranean, the Sahara and the Sahel, a hypothesis that implies thelongest (>4000 km) migratory flight recorded for a butterfly in a single generation. In the light of the newevidence, we revise the prevailing spatiotemporal model for the annual migration of V. cardui to incorporatetropical Africa, which could potentially be regarded as the missing geographic link between autumn (southwards)and spring (northwards) movements. © 2016 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the LinneanSociety, 2016.Funding was provided by the Committee for Research and Exploration of National Geographic (grant number 9528-14) and by the Spanish MINECO (project CGL2013-48277-P). G.T. is supported by the Marie Curie Actions FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IOF (project 622716) and by grant BP-A00275 (AGAUR-Generalitat de Catalunya).Peer Reviewe

Species abundance patterns in an ecosystem simulation studied through Fisher's logseries

We have developed an individual-based evolving predator-prey ecosystem simulation that integrates, for the first time, a complex individual behaviour model, an evolutionary mechanism and a speciation process, at an acceptable computational cost. In this article, we analyse the species abundance patterns observed in the communities generated by our simulation, based on Fisher's logseries. We propose a rigorous methodology for testing abundance data against the logseries. We show that our simulation produces coherent results, in terms of relative species abundance, when compared to classical ecological patterns. Some preliminary results are also provided about how our simulation is supporting ecological field results

Volume 2, Chapter 12-15: Terrestrial Insects: Holometabola – Lepidoptera: Geometroidea – Noctuoidea

https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/bryo-ecol-subchapters/1166/thumbnail.jp

Moths: Their biology, diversity and evolution

Moths is an accessible introduction to the stunning diversity, life habits and evolution of moths. This iconic insect group encompasses 128 of the 135 families of the scaly winged insects (Lepidoptera), with some 140,000 known species. Moths are among the most successful of the Earth’s inhabitants, with an ancient history, some fossils being dated to 190 million years old. This book traces the structure and development of these winged insects and reveals some of their extraordinary adaptations, such as caterpillars that communicate with ants, as well as their ruthless survival tactics – including blood-sucking, feeding on the tears of sleeping birds, and cannibalism of their own mothers. It also exposes their essential roles in ecosystems and manifold interactions with humans. Often considered denizens of the night, hopelessly allured by lamps and mean to fabrics, the book shines a spotlight on moths, illuminating the bright side of their astonishing diversity.Open access supplementary sections of the book 'Moths: Their biology, diversity and evolution'

Flying between raindrops : strong seasonal turnover of several Lepidoptera groups in lowland rainforests of Mount Cameroon

1. Although seasonality in the tropics is often less pronounced than in temperate areas, tropical ecosystems show seasonal dynamics as well. Nevertheless, individual tropical insects’ phenological patterns are still poorly understood, especially in the Afrotropics. To fill this gap, we investigated biodiversity patterns of Lepidoptera communities at three rainforest localities in the foothills of Mount Cameroon, West Africa, one of the wettest places in the world. 2. Our multi-taxa approach covered six lepidopteran groups (fruit-feeding butterflies and moths, the families Sphingidae, Saturniidae, and Eupterotidae, and the subfamily Arctiinae of Erebidae) with diverse life strategies. We sampled adults of the focal groups in three distinct seasons. Our sampling included standardised bait-trapping (80 traps exposed for ten days per locality and season) and attraction by light (six full nights per locality and season). 3. Altogether, our dataset comprised 20,576 specimens belonging to 559 (morpho)species of the focal groups. The biodiversity of Lepidoptera generally increased in the high-dry season, and either increased (fruit-feeding moths, Arctiinae, Saturniidae) or decreased (butterflies, Sphingidae) in the transition to the wet season in particular groups. Simultaneously, we revealed a strong species turnover of fruit-feeding Lepidoptera and Arctiinae among the seasons, indicating relatively high specialisation of these communities for particular seasons. 4. Such temporal specialisation can make the local communities of butterflies and moths especially sensitive to the expected seasonal perturbations caused by the global change. Because of the key role of Lepidoptera across trophic levels, such changes in their communities could strengthen this impact on entire tropical ecosystems

Chromolaena in the Asia-Pacific region Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on biological control and management of chromolaena held in Cairns, Australia, May 6–9, 2003

Crop Production/Industries,

Moth Diversity at Gunung Halimun-Salak National Park, West Java

A study on moth fauna with focus on macro-moths was conducted at Gunung Halimun-Salak National Park from January to December 2007. The aims of the study were to acquire information of macro-moth diversity and to access the composition of the species at this area. Another objective of the research was to explore undescribed species of moths that inhabit this park. The result showed that a year collecting time with four sampling sites recorded only about 86% of estimated value in this park (846 of 983 species). Index diversity based on Fisher’s α is high. In addition, the number of families recorded from this park is also high, 29 families, or about half of the moth families that occur in Indo-Malayan region. Citiis site was the highest among other sites in term of the diversity index, while Gunung Botol is the lowest. These two sites have a few species in common. In general, Geometridae, Noctuidae, and Pyralidae dominate across all sites. The other significant finding of the research is that Dudgeonidae that has never been recorded from Indonesia was found at Citiis site