Recovery of fruit-feeding butterfly communities in Budongo Forest Reserve after anthropogenic disturbance
Loading...
Date
2021-04-07
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Forest Ecology and Management
Abstract
Understanding of how biodiversity can recover after anthropogenic disturbances, such as selective logging, is
important for planning conservation strategies for tropical forests and for more sustainable timber harvest re gimes. However, the knowledge of insect community compositions in regenerating logged forests is still limited,
especially in the Afrotropics. Here, we evaluated the recovery patterns of fruit-feeding butterfly communities in
four different-aged secondary forest compartments and one primary forest compartment in the Budongo Central
Forest Reserve, Uganda. In each compartment, butterflies were sampled monthly for five consecutive months in
2017 using traps baited with fermented bananas. A total of 3,778 individuals, representing 82 species (78
identified at the species level and four morphogroups) were recorded. The fruit-feeding butterfly community
composition differed among forest compartments and study months. Fruit-feeding butterfly communities of the
oldest 72-year-old secondary forest compartment were similar to the primary forest compartment. In the younger
secondary forest compartments the seasonal variation was large; especially the communities of the “core” rainy
season months were distinct from the communities in primary and oldest secondary forest. The majority of individuals captured from both primary and secondary forests represented forest-dependent species. Primary
forests are irreplaceable for preserving the diversity of tropical forests in the long-term. Nevertheless, our study
demonstrates that selective logging can allow fruit-feeding butterfly community composition to recover if
enough time (>70 years) is allowed for recovery.
Description
Oloya_butterfly_article_2021
Keywords
Biodiversity recovery, Butterfly communities, Conservation, Forest disturbance, Selective logging Uganda
Citation
Oloya, J., Malinga, G. M., Nyafwono, M., Akite, P., Nakadai, R., Holm, S., & Valtonen, A. (2021). Recovery of fruit-feeding butterfly communities in Budongo Forest Reserve after anthropogenic disturbance. Forest Ecology and Management, 491, 119087.