Biodiversidade de borboletas frugívoras no parque estadual das várzeas do Rio Ivinhema, Mato Grosso do Sul

Abstract

The insects of the order Lepidoptera are considered important bioindicators since they present high levels of sensitivity according to the level of habitat degradation. Neotropical butterfly communities can be divided into two guilds according to their eating feeding habits: frugivorous and nectarivorous. The frugivorous belongs to the Nymphalidae family and are recognized for their great diversity, dispersion capacity, and also for their sensitivity to environmental changes, occurring mainly in areas of little altered fragments. Thus, the present study aimed to describe the community of frugivorous butterflies in areas of lowland forest fragments in the Parque Estadual das Várzeas do Rio Ivinhema, also evaluating the relationship between butterfly species and fruit and flowering trees in the local. The collections were carried out in five forest fragments in the Parque from January to March 2020. For passive collections, we used Van Someren-Rydon traps with a mixture of mashed bananas and sugar cane juice, fermented for 48 hours and active collections were made with entomological network. In addition, were counted the trees that were bearing or flowering during the collection periods. Species richness was evaluated using the Simpson and Shannon diversity indices. The species composition at the sampled points and the correlation between the frugivorous butterfly species and the fruiting and flowering trees species were evaluated by non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS). Twenty-seven species were collected, which belong to the subfamilies Biblidinae, Satyrinae, Charaxinae, and Nymphalinae respectively. Three species were singletons, two doubletons, six rare, six frequent and 15 species were common. The most abundant species were Fountainea ryphea representing 25.19% of the specimens collected, Hamadryas februa with 19.27% and Yphthimoides sp. with 18.29%. Fragment 1 showed greater richness (21 species) and fragment 3 lesser richness, with 11 species. The accumulation curves of generated species show that fragments 1, 3, and 5 tend to stabilize, while fragments 2 and 4 require greater sampling effort. The characterization of the community by NMDS points to differences between the composition and abundance of species according to the points sampled, a factor that may indicate competition between species, since the occurrence of one species can reduce the frequency of occurrence of another. In addition, the NMDS ordination pointed out that there is a correlation between the composition of frugivorous butterfly species with the species of trees bearing fruit or flowering in the sampled fragments, separating them mainly between the fragments to the west of the river and the fragments to the east. Therefore, our results contribute to the knowledge of the diversity and composition of frugivorous butterflies in floodplain forest areas and transition areas such as the Parque Estadual das Várzeas do Rio Ivinhema. Furthermore, it shows that the species composition of frugivorous butterflies is influenced by the species of trees bearing or flowering in these fragments.