Author/Editor		de Groot, Maarten
Title		Tropical butterflies and disturbances: a research to the effects of disturbance on butterfly species composition, richness, abundances and diversity in a North Sierra Madre forest, Philippines
Type		monografija
Place		Leiden
Publisher		University Leiden
Publication year		2001
Volume		str. 47
Language		eng
Abstract		Since ages human being are already extracting products from the tropical forests. It is only a few decades ago that multinationals started to log large parts of the forests. This reflects itself on the wildlife by a rapid decline (Mittermeier et a1.,1997). The Philippines is one of the hottest hotspots, where already 80% of the forest are logged. Also is the Philippines a country with a high percentage of endemic species (e.g. 40% of all butterflies species are endemic) This research takes the problems of forest degradation for a small group of animals in account, namely the butterflies (Rhopalocera). These groups are good indicators for the disturbance of their habitat. Therefor, this research focuses on the effect of this group in the degradation of the forest. The hypothesis of this research is "Forest disturbance causes changes in butterfly species richness, abundance, composition and diversity, with significant decrease in endemic species diversity". The research site is located in the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park (NSMNP); it contains the largest forest cover of the Philippines, and has a surface cover of 182,961 ha lowland dipterocarp forest. On the borders is heavily logged but going in to the park it is more selectively logged forest. Two locations were chosen in the NSMNP: one on the Cagayan valley side (Apaya) and one on the Pacific Ocean side. Apaya is surveyed twice in Apaya and Palanan once. The research is done in five sites: Slightly disturbed dipterocarp forest, disturbed dipterocarp forest, degraded dipterocarp forest, edge and grassland sites using the two kinds of counting methods: traps and transects. Through the collected data the area gets an overview which species and in what diversity it has.
Descriptors		BUTTERFLIES TROPICAL CLIMATE ECOSYSTEM POPULATION DENSITY LEPIDOPTERA PHILIPPINES