Question

Diversity and distribution of butterfly fauna in norteast india

Answer 1

A study on diversity of butterfly fauna was carried out in the North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology (NERIST) Campus of Nirjuli, Itanagar; Arunachal Pradesh, India. The habitat was divided into four major categories namely home garden, forest patch, road side plantation and open grassland. A total of 63 species of butterflies belonging to the five families were recorded during the survey and Nymphalidae were the most commonly recorded, accounting for 44% of total species recorded followed by Lycaenidae 17%, Pieridae 16% and Papilionidae 14% of total species and minimum was recorded for Hesperidae 8% (n=5) Maximum 51 species were recorded in the forest patches followed by home garden (46), road side plantation (44) and minimum in open grassland (36). A total of 398 individuals were recorded from the campus with highest abundance in home garden (n=129) followed by open grassland (n=96), forest patch (n=89) and road side plantation (n=84). The diversity was found high in the forest patch (H=3.76) followed by roadside plantation (H=3.68), home garden (H=3.65) and open grassland (H=3.39). Conservation of butterfly fauna in a small landscape particularly in human dominated might be a good model for maintaining optimal habitat within fragments and in that case academic institutional campus with high plant diversity might be a very good option for the conservation of the species.