Temporal patterns in Saturnidae (silk moth) and Sphingidae (hawk moth) assemblages in protected forests of central Uganda.
Forest-dependent biodiversity is threatened throughout the tropics by habitat loss and land-use intensification of the matrix habitats. We resampled historic data on two moth families, known to play central roles in many ecosystem processes, to evaluate temporal changes in species richness and community structure in three protected forests in central Uganda in a rapidly changing matrix. Our results show some significant declines in the moth species richness and the relative abundance and richness of forest-dependent species over the last 20-40 years. The observed changes in species richness and composition among different forests, ecological types, and moth groups highlight the need to repeatedly monitor biodiversity even within protected and relatively intact forests.
Department of Biological Sciences, Makerere University Kampala, Uganda ; Department of Biology, University of Bergen Bergen, Norway.
Perpetra
P
Akite
Department of Biology, University of Bergen Bergen, Norway.
Richard J
RJ
Telford
Windall View Werrington, Peterborough, UK.
Paul
P
Waring
Department of Biological Sciences, Makerere University Kampala, Uganda.
Anne M
AM
Akol
Department of Biology, University of Bergen Bergen, Norway.
Vigdis
V
Vandvik
Compositional change; Lepidoptera; extinction debt; forest degradation; matrix intensification; resampling; species decline