Diversidade de borboletas (Lepidoptera: papilionoidea) de fragmentos de Mata Atlântica na região central do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil

Abstract

This dissertation presents information on (1) the list of butterfly species in the central region of Rio Grande do Sul State, and on (2) the influence of environmental variables in the distribution of butterflies assemblages. The study was executed in four Atlantic forest fragments, two in Seasonal Deciduous Forest and two in Ombrophilous Mixed Forest. From September 2011 to August 2012, after 432 sampling/net/hours, 3984 individuals were recorded belonging to 165 butterfly species of the Papilionidae, Pieridae, Lycaenidae, Riodinidae and Nymphalidae families. Nymphalidae (50.3%) was the family with the greater richness representativeness, followed by Lycaenidae (19.6%), Pieridae (11.7%), Riodinidae (11%), and Papilionidae (7.4%). The list of species contributed to an increase of 37 new records of butterflies for the central region of Rio Grande do Sul, and five of these constitute new records for the state. The accumulation curves and analytical estimators point to an increase in the number of species for all the fragments studied, with the increase of sampling effort. The rarefaction analysis showed resemblance of the species richness between the studied assemblages and that was corroborated by the Whittaker diagram. The RDA pointed that the altitude, temperature, relative air humidity, wind velocity, phytophysiognomies (FED and FOM) were significant in the distribution of lepidopterofauna. In spite of a large amount of the species abundance variability have remained unexplained, our results highlight the contribution of local environmental variables in structuring assemblages. The results of this study provide subsidies for the elaboration of future conservation and management plans of the local and regional biodiversity.