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Demography and mobility of three common understory butterfly species from tropical rain forest of Papua New Guinea

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Population Ecology

Abstract

The mobility of butterflies determines their ability to find host plant species, and thus their potential host plant range, as well as their ability to maintain meta-populations in fragmented habitats. While butterfly movement has been extensively studied for temperate species, very little is known for tropical forest species. A mark-release-recapture study of the three most common butterfly species in the understory of a lowland primary rainforest in Papua New Guinea included 3,705, 394 and 317 marked individuals of Danis danis, Taenaris sp. and Parthenos aspila respectively, with 1,031, 78 and 40 butterfly individuals recaptured at least once. Over a period of 6 weeks there were almost 22,000 individuals belonging to these three species hatching within or entering our four study plots totaling 14.58 ha in area. The most abundant species, D. danis, with 20,000 individuals, showed highly variable population densities during the study. The residency time in the studied plots was highest for P. aspila (84 days), as individual butterflies stayed mostly in a single gap; we estimated that less than 1 % of individuals disperse 1 km or more. Similar movement probability was found in D. danis whilst in Taenaris sp., 10 % of the population disperses ≥1 km. Movement distances of D. danis were more than sufficient to locate its host plant, Derris elliptica, which occurred in 61 % of the 20 × 20 m subplots within a 50 ha plot. Compared with temperate species, our three species have much longer life spans, but their movement patterns remain within the known mobility estimates of temperate species. The mobility of D. danis is close to the average for temperate Lycaenidae, while Taenaris sp. is more mobile and P. aspila less mobile than the mean for all temperate species.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Samuel Jepi, Christopher Saldon, Absolom Paul, Fidelis Kimbeng and numerous field assistants who helped with fieldwork. Wanang community, lead by Philip Damen, permitted this work on their lands. Billy Bau determined Derris species. Jan Leps advised on statistical analyses. Zdenek Faltynek Fric and Martin Konvicka commented on the manuscript. Tom M. Fayle and Nichola Plowman improved the English in the manuscript. This work was supported by the Christensen Fund, National Science Foundation (DEB-0841885), Czech Science Foundation (14-04258S), Czech Ministry of Education (LH11008), Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species (UK), Grant Agency of the University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice (121/2010/P, 136/2010/P) and by the project Biodiversity of forest ecosystems CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0064 co-financed by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branisovska 31, 370 05, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic

    Petr Vlasanek & Vojtech Novotny

  2. Institute of Entomology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Branisovska 31, 370 05, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic

    Petr Vlasanek & Vojtech Novotny

  3. New Guinea Binatang Research Center, PO Box 604, Madang, Papua New Guinea

    Vojtech Novotny

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  1. Petr Vlasanek
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Correspondence to Petr Vlasanek.

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Vlasanek, P., Novotny, V. Demography and mobility of three common understory butterfly species from tropical rain forest of Papua New Guinea. Popul Ecol 57, 445–455 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10144-015-0480-7

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