[Butterfly diversity and faunal characteristics on the south slope of Taibai Mountain, Shaanxi Province of Northwest China].
An investigation was conducted on the butterflies on the south slope of Taibai Mountain from April to October, 2009, with their diversity index, evenness index, dominance index, and species richness calculated and analyzed. A total of 126 species were recorded, belonging to 77 genera and 5 families. Nymphalidae had the highest diversity index (3.3621) and species richness (9.9363), and Pieridae had the highest dominance index (0.0573) and evenness index (0.8352). The genera and species were most abundant in June-August, the diversity index was the highest in July (3.4094), and the species richness was the highest in August (10.7). The bio-geographic component analysis of 124 species (other 2 species were not identified) showed that the widely distributed species were most abundant (51 species), occupying 40.5% of the total, followed by Palaearctic species (41 species), occupying 32.5%, and Oriental species were the least (32 species), occupying 25.4%, which suggested that Taibai Mountain could be the transitional area of Palearctic and Oriental regions. The comparative analysis of the butterfly diversity and faunal characteristics on the south and north slopes of Taibai Mountain showed that there were 85 shared species, and the similarity coefficient was 62.0%, indicating that the butterfly fauna had definite difference between the two slopes though they were geographically in proximity.
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Plant Protection Resources and Pest Management, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China. gaoke0409@gmail.com
Ke
K
Gao
Li-Jun
LJ
Fang
Su-Qin
SQ
Shang
Ya-Lin
YL
Zhang
D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D002080:Butterflies / Q000145:classification* / Q000254:growth & development; D002681:China; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D017753:Ecosystem; D011157:Population Dynamics