Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-01T19:50:55.116Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Occurrences of forest butterflies in the farm bush savannah outside a forest reserve in Ghana, West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2009

Jean P. Elbers  and
J.L. Bossart
Jean P. Elbers*
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Missouri State University, Springfield, Missouri65897, USA
J.L. Bossart
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, Louisiana70402, USA
*
*E-mail: elbers1@missouristate.edu
Get access

Abstract

The willingness of a species to leave a forest fragment is a prerequisite for subsequent dispersal across the intervening non-forested landscape. Species with stringent fidelity to the forest patch will be isolated from populations in other fragments and predisposed to factors that promote extinction of local populations. Here, we document which fruit-feeding, forest-dwelling butterflies occur in the farm bush savannah outside an afrotropical forest reserve in order to gain a first approximation of those potentially dispersing across it. Standard fruit-baited traps hung at 80 m inside the forest, the forest edge and 12 and 50 m into the savannah matrix were used to characterize communities in the different habitats. A total of 1616 specimens were collected from the 19 traps, representing 90 species. Rarefied species richness was generally comparable across habitats. Multivariate ordination analyses, which integrate species composition and relative abundance in addition to richness, uncovered two broad community types, i.e. forest (edge plus 80 m inside) and matrix. Relative fidelity to forest habitat was investigated for the 45 species that were represented by at least five individuals. More than half of the forest-associated species showed relaxed fidelity to forest habitat and were commonly trapped in the matrix. Although forest generalists and dry forest species were expected to be more commonly trapped outside the forest relative to wet or moist forest species, there was no relationship between the relative occurrence of species in matrix versus forest habitat and their habitat association category.

Keywords

Afrotropicsforest fragmentsfruit-feeding butterflieshabitat fidelitymatrix habitatNymphalidaepatchy landscapes
Type
Research Paper
Information
International Journal of Tropical Insect Science , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 141 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © ICIPE 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bender, D. J., Contreas, T. A. and Fahrig, L. (1998) Habitat loss and population decline: a meta-analysis of the patch size effect. Ecology 79, 517–533.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentley, J. M., Catterall, C. P. and Smith, G. C. (2000) Effects of fragmentation of araucarian vine forest on small mammal communities. Conservation Biology 14, 1075–1087.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bossart, J. L. and Opuni-Frimpong, E. (2009) Distance from edge determines fruit-feeding butterfly community diversity in Afrotropical forest fragments. Environmental Entomology 38, 43–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bossart, J. L., Opuni-Frimpong, E., Kuudaar, S. and Nkrumah, E. (2005) Fruit-feeding butterfly communities of forest ‘islands’ in Ghana: survey completeness and spatial correlates of diversity. In African Biodiversity: Molecules, Organisms, Ecosystems, Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Tropical Biology, 2–6 May 2004, Museum Koenig, Bonn, Germany (edited by Huber, B. A., Sinclair, B. J. and Lampe, K.-H.), pp. 151–158. Springer Science, New York, USA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bossart, J. L., Opuni-Frimpong, E., Kuudaar, S. and Nkrumah, E. (2006) Richness, abundance, and complementarity of fruit-feeding butterfly species in relict sacred forests and forest reserves of Ghana. Biodiversity and Conservation 15, 333–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bossart, J. L. and Pashley-Prowell, D. (1998) Genetic estimates of population structure and gene flow: limitations, lessons, and new directions. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 13, 171–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colwell, R. K. (2005) EstimateS 7.5 User's Guide. http://purl.oclc.org/estimates.Google Scholar
Daily, G. C., Ceballos, G., Pacheco, J., Suzán, G. and Sánchez-Azofeifa, A. (2003) Countryside biogeography of neotropical mammals: conservation opportunities in agricultural landscapes of Costa Rica. Conservation Biology 17, 1814–1826.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennis, R. L. H., Shreeve, T. G. and van Dyck, H. (2003) Towards a functional resource-based concept for habitat: a butterfly biology view-point. Oikos 102, 417–425.Google Scholar
Fairhead, J. and Leach, M. (2002) The dynamic forest landscapes of West Africa: their shaping in relation to natural and anthropogenic processes. In Understanding and Capturing the Multiple Values of Tropical Forests (edited by Verweij, P. A.), pp. 21–35. Tropenbos International, Wageningen.Google Scholar
Fermon, H., Waltert, M. and Mühlenber, M. (2003) Movement and vertical stratification of fruit-feeding butterflies in a managed West African rainforest. Journal of Insect Conservation 7, 7–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gascon, C., Lovejoy, T. E., Bierregaard, R. O. Jr, Malcolm, J. R., Stouffer, P. C., Vasconcelos, H. L., Laurance, W. F., Zimmerman, B., Tocher, M. and Borges, S. (1999) Matrix habitat and species richness in tropical forest remnants. Biological Conservation 91, 223–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gotelli, N. J. and Entsminger, G. L. (2003) Ecosim 7.00 User's Guide. http://www.garyentsminger.com/ecosim/index.htm.Google Scholar
Hall, J. B. and Swain, M. D. (1981) Distribution and Ecology of Vascular Plants in Tropical Rain Forest: Forest Vegetation of Ghana. W. Junk Publishers, The Hague. 383 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horner-Devine, M. C., Daily, D. C., Ehrlich, P. R. and Boggs, C. L. (2003) Countryside biogeography of tropical butterflies. Conservation Biology 17, 168–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, B. C. (1989) Effects of forest fragmentation on dung and carrion beetle communities in Central Amazonia. Ecology 70, 1715–1725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kotze, D. J. and Samways, M. J. (1999) Invertebrate conservation at the interface between the grassland matrix and natural Afromontane forest fragments. Biodiversity and Conservation 8, 1339–1363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lande, R. (1988) Genetics and demography in biological conservation. Science 241, 1455–1460.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Larsen, T. B. (2005) Butterflies of West Africa. Appolo Books, Svenborg. 865 pp.Google Scholar
Larsen, T. B., Aduse-Poku, K., Boersma, H., Sáfián, S. and Baker, J. (2007) Bobiri butterfly sanctuary in Ghana – discovering its butterflies (with a checklist of the 930 butterflies of Ghana). Metamorphosis 18, 88–125.Google Scholar
McCune, B. and Grace, J. B. (2002) Analysis of Ecological Communities. MJM Software Design, Gleneden Beach, Oregon. 300 pp.Google Scholar
Magurran, A. E. (2003) Measuring Biological Diversity. Blackwell Science Ltd, Malden, Massachusetts. 256 pp.Google Scholar
Marín, L., León-Cortés, J. L. and Stefanescu, C. (2008) The effect of an agro-pasture landscape on diversity and migration patterns of frugivorous butterflies in Chiapas, Mexico. Biodiversity and Conservation 18, 919–934.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perfecto, I. and Vandermeer, J. (2008) Biodiversity conservation in tropical agroecosystems: a new conservation paradigm. Annals of the New York Academy of Science 1134, 173–200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pisces Conservation Ltd (2005) CAP 3.1. Pisces Conservation Ltd, New Milton.Google Scholar
Poorter, L., Bongers, F., Kouamé, F. N. and Hawthorne, W. D. (2004) Biodiversity of West African Forests: An Ecological Atlas of Woody Plant Species. CABI Publishing, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 521 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Primack, R. B. (2004) A Primer of Conservation Biology 3rd edn. Sinauer Associates Inc., Sunderland, Maryland. 320 pp.Google Scholar
Rabinowitz, D. (1981) Seven forms of rarity. In The Biological Aspects of Rare Plant Conservation (edited by Synge, H.), pp. 205–217. Wiley, Chichester. 586 pp.Google Scholar
Ricketts, T. H. (2001) The matrix matters: effective isolation in fragmented landscapes. The American Naturalist 158, 87–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ricketts, T. H., Daily, G. C., Ehrlich, P. R. and Fay, J. P. (2001) Countryside biogeography of moths in a fragmented landscape: biodiversity in native and agricultural habitats. Conservation Biology 15, 378–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenblatt, D. L., Heske, E. J., Nelson, S. L., Barber, D. M., Miller, M. A. and MacAllister, B. (1999) Forest fragments in east-central Illinois: islands or habitat patches for mammals? American Midland Naturalist 141, 115–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sayer, J., Harcourt, C. S. and Collins, N. M. (eds) (1992) Conservation Atlas of Tropical Forests: Africa. Macmillan Publishers Ltd, London. 74 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spector, S. and Ayzama, S. (2003) Rapid turnover and edge effects in dung beetle assemblages (Scarabaeidae) at a Bolivian neotropical forest – savannah ecotone. Biotropica 35, 394–404.Google Scholar
Vandergast, A. G. and Gillespie, R. G. (2004) Effects of natural forest fragmentation on a Hawaiian spider community. Environmental Entomology 33, 1296–1305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Villard, M. A. (1998) On forest-interior species, edge avoidance, area sensitivity, and dogmas in avian conservation. The Auk 115, 801–805.Google Scholar
Young, A., Boyle, T. and Brown, T. (1996) The population genetic consequences of habitat fragmentation for plants. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 11, 413–418.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed