Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 October 2020 | 12(14): 16971–16978
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4796.12.14.16971-16978
#4796 | Received 05 January 2019 | Final
received 10 September 2020 | Finally accepted 19 September 2020
Butterfly species richness and
diversity in rural and urban areas of Sirajganj, Bangladesh
Sheikh Muhammad Shaburul Imam 1,
Amit Kumer Neogi 2,
M. Ziaur Rahman 3 & M. Sabbir Hasan 4
1,3,4 Department of Zoology Jagannath University, Dhaka 1100, Bangladesh.
2 Communicable Disease Programme,
BRAC, 75-Mohakhali, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh.
1 shaburulimam01@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 neogi3710@gmail.com, 3 ziaur4681@gmail.com,
4 sabbirhasanjnu@gmail.com
Abstract: An appraisal of butterfly species
diversity study was conducted in four selected parts of Sirajganj District,
Bangladesh, as a part of an ecological research. The study was conducted from March 2015 to
April 2016. A total of 19,343
butterflies belonging to five families and 12 subfamilies was recorded. A random sampling of forest, riverside rural,
and urban areas in Sirajganj District revealed the presence of 65 butterfly species,
dominated by Lycaenidae (37%) over Nymphalidae (33%) followed by Pieridae
(19%), Hesperiidae (7%), and Papilionidae
(4%). Butterfly fauna in Bangabandhu
Sheikh Mujib Jamuna Ecopark (BJEP), compared with the
percentage of other study sites, was very high (Hs= 4.03) and the percentage of
hedge species was relatively higher (45%) than that of improved grassland and
forest interior species. The relative
abundance of the butterflies varied with the site, month, and family
significantly. Considering the landscape of Sirajganj, steps to enhance
riverside natural gardening should be adopted to maintain butterfly diversity
and sustain the ecosystem services derived from them.
Keywords: Abundance, ecosystem, family,
forest, natural gardening, landscape, riverside.
Editor: Monsoon J. Gogoi,
Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India. Date
of publication: 26 October 2020 (online & print)
Citation: Imam, S.M.S., A.K. Neogi, M.Z. Rahman & M.S. Hasan (2020). Butterfly species richness and
diversity in rural and urban areas of Sirajganj, Bangladesh. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(14): 16971–16978. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4796.12.14.16971-16978
Copyright: © Imam et al. 2020. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and
distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the
author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: Self-funded.
Competing interests: The authors
declare no competing interests.
Author details: Sheikh Muhammad Shaburul Imam has broad interest in biology encompassing the fields of wildlife,
nature conservation, ecology and wildlife management. He has completed his MSc
in Zoology (wildlife and biodiversity conservation). He has worked in different
national and international project as a wildlife researcher. Amit Kumer Neogi has broad
interest in biology encompassing the fields of animal taxonomy, genetics, population,
ecology, and conservation biology. He has completed his MSc in Zoology
(Entomology) from Jagannath University. He has worked
in different National and International projects based on wildlife
conservation, insect taxonomy, fish taxonomy, environmental DNA, DNA barcoding,
etc. He is the lead investigator of butterfly Bangladesh team. M. Ziaur Rahman has been completed his MSc in Zoology
(wildlife and biodiversity conservation) in Jagannath
University. Worked as a researcher in butterfly Bangladesh team. M. Sabbir Hasan has been completed his MSc in Zoology
(wildlife and biodiversity conservation) in Jagannath
University. Worked as a researcher in butterfly Bangladesh team.
Author contribution: All the authors have contributed
equally to conduct this study; SMSI, MJR & MSH were responsible for the
collection of data; AKN and SMSI did the analysis and write up of this
manuscript.
Acknowledgements: Authors are very grateful to
Bangladesh Forest Department for their enormous cooperation during the survey.
Also grateful to Mr. Md. Shalauddin for creating the
GIS map. Authors are thankful to the volunteers who were involves during the
mass survey to the sampling area.
Introduction
Butterflies are known to be the
indicator species for their interaction with the environment. Butterflies occupy a vital position in
ecosystems, and their occurrence and diversity are considered to be good
indicators of the health of terrestrial biota (Kunte
2000). They trigger some signal in
response to the physical and chemical changes in the environment; they play a
significant role in pollination and in community ecology. Evolutionary mechanism of pollination has
largely depended on the scaly jewels (Pollard 1991). The compilation of species lists and
identification of habitat preferences and abundances are the first steps in
effectively conserving biodiversity through the establishment of species
baselines and basic ecological requirements (Chowdhury et al. 2017). The butterfly fauna in the northeastern and southeastern
parts of Bangladesh is relatively rich and diverse in contrast to favourable
habitat, elevational gradients, and microclimatic regimes. Most of the studies on this group are primarily
conducted on the evergreen and mixed evergreen forest areas of Bangladesh;
however, other parts of Bangladesh lack baseline studies. Torban (2004)
mentioned some locations in the northwestern and
northern part of Bangladesh as potential territory for butterflies. Sirajganj is one of the 64 districts of
Bangladesh situated in the northern part of this country, and this is an
initial baseline for butterfly diversity in a mixed habitat setting where the
urbanization process is prevalent.
Material
and Methods
Study Area
Sirajganj District, situated in
northern Bangladesh, has an area of about 2,497.92km². It is a part of Rajshahi
Division, the gateway to northern Bengal.
It is bordered on the north by Natore District
and Bogura District by the Jamuna River on the
east. In this current study, we chose
four distinct study areas based on their floral diversity and distribution:
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Jamuna Ecopark (BJEP)—this park was partially developed during the
construction of the Jamuna Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Bridge on the Jamuna River. BJEP covers approximately 50.02ha and is
situated in the western part of the Jamuna River. Natural vegetation, including small natural
forests, is mainly covered with deciduous and semi-deciduous vegetation. This area has a rich diversity of weeds and
bushes.
Belkuchi—this study site aligns with the
catchment area of the Jamuna River.
Embankments and some human settlements made the site stable. This area, with low disturbance from human interference, is composed of mixed
vegetation lands cultivated for seasonal crops, grasses, flowers, and
vegetables. The area consists of a
variety of butterfly associate plants for nectaring,
viz., Pisum sativum, Brassica juncea, Ixora rosea, Catharanthus roseus, Clerodendrum
viscosum, Atrocarpus
lacucha, Citrus spp., and Tridax
spp.
Haidarpur—this study site is an urban area. It is a highly human-disturbed area. Urbanization process is prevalent in this
study site. Most people run hand looms
and power looms in their dwelling areas.
Vegetation, mainly seedlings of fruit and flowering plants, are of mixed
types.
Kodomtoli—Kodomtali
is situated in the low-lying catchment area of the Brahmaputra-Jamuna river
basin. Large low-lying paddy fields were
found at this site. Vegetation mostly
consists of Brassica sp. in addition to some areas for cultivating
shrubs and vegetables. The soil is
mostly muddy in texture. The present
study was conducted during March 2015 to April 2016.
Data collection and
identification of butterflies
The study has been conducted by
line transect method. The authors
covered one permanent transect at every study site each month. Observations were taken between 08.00h and
16.00h. Butterflies were primarily
identified directly by watching and taking photographs using Canon-600D
camera. Sometimes specimens were caught
for identification and then released after photographing, viz., Parnara sp., Pelopidus
sp., Mycalesis sp., and Telicota
sp. In a few cases, specimens were
collected with sweep nets and carried to the laboratory for further
identification processes. Climatic
conditions such as temperature, humidity were measured by Thermo
Hygrometer (model 288 - ATH).
Butterflies were identified based on physical features with the help of
reference books viz., Evans (1932), Kehimkar
(2013). The scientific name and common
name of butterflies were followed by Larsen (2004).
Results
and Discussion
Over the
study period, 65 species belonging to 50 genera and five families were
recorded. Among those four areas, BJEP
represented all the species (65 species) because of its high floral diversity
and deep vegetation, followed by Haiderpur with 58
species, Belkuchi with 37 species, and Kodomtoli with 33 species.
All observed species and counted numbers are given in Table 1.
In this
current study, we gave precedence to richness of butterfly species as our
primary response variable. Changes in
habitat quality caused by urbanization might alter insect richness, resulting
in either a decrease or more rarely in increases, in the richness of specific
insect groups (McKinney 2008). Among the
four sites, BJEP and Haiderpur showed significant
differences in species composition.
Butterflies are found in both rural and urban habitats; diversity and
richness are much lower in urban areas than in natural ones (Raupp et al. 2010).
Overall, recorded species richness of this study showed how butterfly
abundance and diversity remained low in the urban areas compared to the forest
lands.
Among the
five families of the observed species from Sirajganj District, the most
dominant family was Lycaenidae having covered 37% of
the total species (24, out of 65). Papilionidae was the least abundant family, with four
species. The diversity profile of
butterflies showed variations in the four sampling sites (Figure 3). In general, the four sampling sites showed
richness in high species and high evenness of distribution (Table 2). Specifically, BJEP showed maximum diversity
(Hs= 4.03) of butterflies, whereas Haiderpur showed
minimum diversity (Hs = 3.74). Evenness
of distribution in all the study sites was found to be high (e H/S̑ = 0.7198 to
0.8653). Greater flowering resources
increases species richness as well as survivability in an ecosystem (Wix et al. 2019).
Floral diversity of BJEP has different flowering understory vegetation
during the dry season (November–March) resulting in the most significant number
of Lycaenidae accounted from this semi-natural forest
(24 species out of 65, 37%), and hence, Zesius
chrysomallus Hübner,
1819 was sighted as a new distributional record for Bangladesh from BJEP
(Rahman et al. 2016).
The
Whittaker plot according to the abundance of different butterfly species is
shown in Figure 4. Melanitis
leda and Eurema
blanda show relative abundances of 4.02% and
3.91% respectively. Both these species
account for 8.03% of total individuals encountered in this current study from
the four areas. Species
accumulation/rarefaction curves as a function of the number of samples shown in
Figure 5 represent that most common species are found in the sampling area,
where curves generally grow rapidly at first.
The red solid curve represents samples in the BJEP followed by Kadamtoli with light blue, Belkuchi
with blue, and Haiderpur with green. Correspondence analysis has greatly
simplified the story in the data (Figure 6); formed with family-wise species
abundance consisting of 65 species, representing four different habitat/sampled
sites. Each curve represents a different
butterfly species richness level in four different locations.
Some
representative groups, viz., grass yellows (Eurema
spp.) and bush browns (Mycalesis spp.), are
observed to have high population in all seasons except in the monsoons,
depending on the habitat. Most of the
species of family Nymphalidae, viz., Junonia sp. and Danaus sp., are found in
different stratification of forests due to their polyphagous character.
The compilation of species lists and identification of habitat
preferences and counting of abundances are the first steps for effective
conservation of biodiversity through information of species baselines related
data. Early successional forests have
some valuable ecosystem services for insect population growth. It can support biodiversity at large (Chazdon 2008). BJEP
covers some natural forests in the western part of the river Yamuna which
support a good number of butterfly species throughout the seasons. The presence of their host plant may have
resulted in the high species diversity.
Butterflies show a strong response to the vegetation of their habitat (Oostermeijer & van Sway 1998). Besides, the use of chemicals causes damage
to the natural environment (Sharma & Singhvi
2017). In urban areas, modification of
landscape, establishment of factories, random cleanup
of bushes reduces the potential habitat for butterflies. Thus, the chance of natural pollination
decreases.
Butterflies
in four habitats showed a highly seasonal trend in pre-monsoon (March–May) and
winter season (October–November). Some
species, viz., Rapala manea,
Chilades pandava,
Euchrysops cnejus,
Chilades lajus,
Lampides boeticus,
Prosotas nora,
Prosotas dubiosa,
and Anthene emolus,
appeared abundant during post-monsoon and were not seen during the
monsoon.
Conclusion
The present
study address several unreported aspects of butterfly and their diversity in
the study area as well as northern part which was not well explored
previously. More detailed study is
required to evaluate the habitat condition through butterfly diversity in the
northern part of Bangladesh. The
vegetation of the riverside area allows a functional variety of flora that are
sources of host plants and nectar plants for butterflies, even home to
different wild animals viz., birds, reptiles, and so on. The conservation of habitat and wild fauna
remains a daunting task in Bangladesh due to overpopulation and a lack of
knowledge about habitat conservation. It
is suggested that greater emphasis be given on sustainable forest management
and integrated conservation approaches in riverside rural as well as urban
habitats to maintain the natural balance.
Table 1. List of butterfly
species sampling site-wise and their abundance at Serajganj
District.
|
Family |
Sub-family |
Common name |
Scientific name |
|
Nymphalidae |
Danainae |
Plain Tiger |
Danaus chrysippus Linnaeus, 1758 |
|
Striped Tiger |
Danaus genutia
genutia (Cramer, 1779) |
||
|
Blue Tiger |
Tirumala limniace (Cramer, 1775) |
||
|
Common Crow |
Euploea core (Cramer, 1780) |
||
|
Nymphalinae |
Common Eggfly |
Hypolimnas bolina Linnaeus, 1758 |
|
|
Common Leopard |
Phalanta phalantha Drury, 1773 |
||
|
Common Castor |
Ariadne merione (Cramer, 1777) |
||
|
Common Baron |
Euthalia aconthea (Cramer, 1777) |
||
|
Common Sailor |
Neptis hylas Linnaeus, 1758 |
||
|
Common Sergeant |
Athyma perius Linnaeus, 1758 |
||
|
Grey Pansy |
Junonia atlites Linnaeus, 1763 |
||
|
Peacock Pansy |
Junonia almana Linnaeus, 1758 |
||
|
Lemon Pansy |
Junonia lemonias Linnaeus, 1758 |
||
|
Satyrinae |
Common Palmfly |
Elymnias hypermnestra Linnaeus, 1763 |
|
|
Common Five-ring |
Ypthima baldus Fabricius, 1775 |
||
|
Common Four-ring |
Ypthima huebneri Kirby, 1871 |
||
|
Common Bushbrown |
Mycalesis perseus (Fabricius, 1775) |
||
|
Dark-branded Bushbrown |
Mycalesis mineus Linnaeus, 1758 |
||
|
Common Evening Brown |
Melanitis leda Linnaeus, 1758 |
||
|
Heliconiinae |
Tawny Coster |
Acraea terpsicore Linnaeus, 1758 |
|
|
Papilionidae |
Papilioninae |
Common Rose |
Pachliopta aristolochiae Fabricius,
1775 |
|
Common Mormon |
Papilio polytes Linnaeus, 1758 |
||
|
Common Jay |
Graphium doson Felder & Felder, 1864 |
||
|
Tailed jay |
Graphium agamemnon Linnaeus, 1758 |
||
|
Pieridae |
Coliadinae |
Mottled Emigrant |
Catopsilia pyranthe Linnaeus, 1758 |
|
Common Emigrant |
Catopsilia pomona Fabricius, 1775 |
||
|
Three-Spot Grass Yellow |
Eurema blanda (Boisduval, 1836) |
||
|
Common Grass Yellow |
Eurema hecabe Linnaeus, 1758 |
||
|
Pierinae |
Common Gull |
Cepora nerissa Fabricius, 1775 |
|
|
Cabbage White |
Pieris canidia
(Sparrman, 1768) |
||
|
Psyche |
Leptosia nina Fabricius, 1793 |
||
|
Common Jezebel |
Delias eucharis (Drury, 1773) |
||
|
Red-Spot Jezebel |
Delias descombesi (Boisduval, 1836) |
||
|
Common Wanderer |
Pareronia hippia (Fabricius, 1787) |
||
|
Lycaenidae |
Polyommatinae |
Common Pierrot |
Castalius rosimon Fabricius, 1775 |
|
Common Cerulean |
Jamides celeno (Cramer, 1775) |
||
|
Pale Grass Blue |
Pseudozizeeria maha Kollar, 1844 |
||
|
Lesser Grass Blue |
Zizina otis (Fabricius, 1787) |
||
|
Tiny Grass Blue |
Zizula hylax (Fabricius, 1775) |
||
|
Dark Grass Blue |
Zizeeria karsandra Moore, 1865 |
||
|
Forget-me-not |
Catochrysops strabo (Fabricius, 1793) |
||
|
Quaker |
Neopithecops zalmora Butler, 1870 |
||
|
Slate Flash |
Rapala manea (Hewitson, 1863) |
||
|
Indigo Flash |
Rapala varuna (Horsfield, 1829) |
||
|
Plains Cupid |
Chilades pandava Horsfield, 1829 |
||
|
Gram Blue |
Euchrysops cnejus (Fabricius, 1798) |
||
|
Lime Blue |
Chilades lajus Stoll, 1780 |
||
|
Pea Blue |
Lampides boeticus Linnaeus, 1767 |
||
|
Common Lineblue |
Prosotas nora (Felder, 1860) |
||
|
Tailless Lineblue |
Prosotas dubiosa (Semper, 1879) |
||
|
Common Ciliate Blue |
Anthene emolus (Godart, 1823) |
||
|
Pointed Ciliate Blue |
Anthene lycaenina (Felder, 1868) |
||
|
Centaur Oakblue |
Arhopala centaurus (Fabricius, 1775) |
||
|
Theclinae |
Yamfly |
Loxura atymnus Stoll, 1780 |
|
|
Monkey Puzzle |
Rathinda amor Fabricius, 1775 |
||
|
Redspot |
Zesius chrysomallus Hübner, 1819 |
||
|
Chocolate Royal |
Remelana jangala (Horsfield, 1829) |
||
|
Common Silverline |
Spindasis vulcanus Fabricius, 1775 |
||
|
Hesperiidae |
Hesperiinae |
Straight Swift |
Parnara guttatus Moore, 1865 |
|
Dark Palm Dart |
Telicota bambusae Moore, 1878 |
||
|
Pale Palm Dart |
Telicota colon Fabricius, 1775 |
||
|
Bengal Swift |
Pelopidas agna
agna (Wallace, 1866) |
||
|
Conjoined Swift |
Pelopidas conjuncta Herrich-Schäffer, 1869 |
||
|
Pyrginae |
Common Snow Flat |
Tagiades japetus (Stoll, 1781) |
|
|
Coliadinae |
Brown Awl |
Badamia exclamationis (Fabricius,
1775) |
Table 2. Different diversity
parameters measured based on the number of counts of butterfly’s species
compare to four study sites of Sirajganj District.
|
Diversity parameters |
BJEP |
Belkuchi |
Haiderpur |
Kodomtoli |
|
Simpson (1-D) |
0.9805 |
0.9738 |
0.9723 |
0.9764 |
|
Shannon (H) |
4.03 |
3.8 |
3.74 |
3.89 |
|
Evenness (e ̑H/S) |
0.8653 |
0.7578 |
0.7198 |
0.7986 |
|
Menhinick |
0.7443 |
0.9277 |
1.08 |
0.8911 |
|
Chao-1 |
65 |
59 |
60.5 |
61 |
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