Butterfly Diversity in Cadaclan, San Fernando La Union, Philippines | InformativeBD

Alma E. Nacua, Alma B. Mohagan, and Grecebio Jonathan D. Alejandro, from the different institute of the Philippines. wrote a research article about, Butterfly Diversity in Cadaclan, San Fernando La Union, Philippines. entitled, Diversity and distribution of butterflies in the open and close canopy forests of Cadaclan, San Fernando La union botanical garden of North Luzon, the Philippines. This research paper published by the Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences (JBES). an open access scholarly research journal on Biodiversity under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences | INNSpub. an open access multidisciplinary research journal publisher. 

Abstract

Butterflies were sampled in Cadaclan, San Fernando La Union Botanical Garden (LUBG) of North Luzon to provide information on species-level diversity trend and distribution of butterflies on the open and close canopy portion of the dipterocarp forest from 2012-2014 using field transect method Species accumulation curve shows that additional sampling is needed for the possible turnover of species. Butterfly abundance was higher in open canopy forest with a mean individual of 8.14 per 10 meters out of the 814 total individuals. The close canopy forest had only 4.57 mean individuals for the total of 457. Species level diversity was higher in open canopy forest (H’ = 1.957) compared with the closed canopy forest (H’ = 1.933). These results suggest that butterflies prefer open canopy forest or clearing for their plights. Butterfly spatial distribution was uneven in the dipterocarp forest of LUBG with only 6 species of aggregate assemblages and 98 species with random distribution.

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Introduction

Butterflies are very interesting subject of insects for study. Approximately 90% of butterfly species inhabit the tropics (Munyuli, 2010). Butterflies are taxonomically and ecologically well known (Mihoci et al., 2011) and are regarded as good ecological indicators for other invertebrates. They also represent environmental quality changes and ecologically play important roles in agricultural landscapes (Munyuli, 2012). They are pollinators which ensure reproduction and survival of plants that are used by other organisms as source of food, reproductive areas and medicine; their presence reflects the absence of other organisms and changes in physico-chemical environment (Mohagan and Treadaway, 2010). Butterflies are also sociologically significant as they are morphologically and colorfully meaningful which has various effects to the culture to some groups of people. Economically, their pupae are sold to zoological gardens for hatching, their morphos are used for jewelry making and the adults are used for wedding release instead of dove to symbolize the socioeconomic metamorphosis of the newlyweds (Mohagan and Treadaway, 2010).

Despite butterfly diversity, ecological, behavioural or sociological and functional roles (e.g., pollination), they remain poorly studied in the tropics specifically in farmlands (Marchiori & Romanowski, 2006). Since butterflies provide significant ecological interactions with crops and native wild plant species in many ecosystems around the globe (Davis et al., 2008), studies leading to their conservation is crucial in sustaining the productivity of agricultural and natural landscapes. Some of the key factors that influence diversity and distribution of species are geographic isolation, landscape features, altitude, and climate (Mihoci et al., 2011). In mountain ecosystems, species distribution is determined by habitat and climate stability (Storch et al., 2003). In the Philippines diversity been done by Baltazar (1991) to inventory the Philippine butterflies but not covering all areas in the country including North Luzon. In South Luzon, a survey of butterflies has been done in Mt. Makiling (Cayabyab, 1992) and Mt. Banahao (Lit, 2001). In Mindanao, several butterfly diversity studies were originated (Mohagan et al., 2011; Mohagan and Treadaway, 2010). In North Luzon, La Union Botanical Garden (LUBG) is a montane garden park that once was a dense forest and now plants are domesticated for ecotourism use. It also features an agro-ecosystem on its vicinity. None of the studies mentioned above show the effects of microclimate in terms of canopy cover on butterfly diversity and abundance.

Hence, the influences of open and close canopy forests to butterfly existence are documented for the first time in La Union Botanical Garden (LUBG), San Fernando, and La Union, Philippines. Thus, this paper aimed to provide information on diversity and species abundance of butterflies in open and close canopy forests in LUBG.

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 Source : Diversity and distribution of butterflies in the open and close canopy forests of Cadaclan,San Fernando La union botanical garden of North Luzon, the Philippines