Butterflies of Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) campus, Thrissur, Kerala, India

 

K.S. Aneesh1, C.K. Adarsh 2 & P.O. Nameer 3

 

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Forestry and Wood Technology, Sir Syed College, Taliparamba, Kannur, Kerala 670142, India

2 BSc final year (Forestry), 3Associate Professor and Head, Department of Wildlife Sciences, College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, Kerala 680656, India

1 aneeshkscof@gmail.com, 2adarshckcof09@gmail.com, 3 nameerpo@gmail.com (corresponding author)

 

 

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o2870.4422-40  | ZooBank:urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:07D10F3A-D768-4C03-B4A0-54A16C30E2F1

 

Editor: George Mathew, Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi, India.    Date of publication:26 May 2013 (online & print)

 

Manuscript details: Ms # o2870 | Received 06 August 2012 | Final received 19 April 2013 | Finally accepted 03 May 2013

 

Citation: Aneesh, K.S., C.K. Adarsh & P.O. Nameer(2013). Butterflies of Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) campus, Thrissur, Kerala, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 5(9): 4422–4440; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o2870.4422-40

 

Copyright: © Aneeshet al. 2013. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTTallows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.

 

Funding: Kerala Agricultural University.

 

Competing Interest: None.

 

Acknowledgements: The authors thank the two anonymous reviewers and the subject editor for their critical comments which greatly improved the manuscript. We thank Jobin K. Mathew, R. Arunraj, K. Haseena, K. Anu Sagaran, Y.N. Annie Jasmine for the support in the field. Mr. V.S. Sreeharifor helping us in the preparation of the map. We also thank the Dean, College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University for encouragement and support.

 

 

 

  For figures, images, tables -- click here  

 

 

Butterflies are sensitive biota, which get severely affected by environmental variations and changes in forest structure (Pollard 1991). They form an important part of the food chain of birds, reptiles, amphibians, spiders and predatory insects. They also respond to disturbances and changesin the quality of habitat, and are thus a good indicator species to evaluate changes in habitat and landscape structure variations (Kremen1992; Kocher & Williams 2000). Butterflies and their caterpillars are dependent on specific host plants for food, thus the diversity of butterflies indirectly reflects overall plant diversity especially that of shrubs and herbs in the given area (Padhye et al. 2006). Most of them are strictly seasonal and prefer only particular set of habitats (Kunte 1997).

India has around 1,501 species of butterflies, out of which 334 species are reported from the Western Ghats and 37 species are endemic to the Western Ghats (Evans 1932; Kunte 2000).  Of the 334 species of butterflies of Western Ghats, 316 species have been reported from Kerala (Palot et al. 2012).

Very little documentation has been done on butterfly fauna in Kerala. Some of the earlier documentation on butterfly fauna from Kerala and adjacent areas include Mathew & Rahamathulla(1993), who had reported 100 species of butterflies from Silent Valley National Park, Sudheendrakumar et al. (2000), who reported 124 species of butterflies from Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary, Arun (2003), reported 75 species from Siruvani Reserved Forests, Ambrose & Raj (2005) reported 24 species from Kalakkad-Mundanthurai Tiger reserve, Eswaran & Pramod(2005) reported 75 species from Anaikatty near Coimbatore, Prasad et al. (2010) recorded 52 species from Kerala University campus, Thiruvananthapuram, while Toms et al. (2010) reported 109 species from Mahatma Gandhi University campus, Kottayam.  In the present study, an attempt has been made to document the richness of butterflies in Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) campus and the findings are presented in this paper.

Study area: The Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) main campus is located at Vellanikkara,Thrissur District, Kerala(Fig. 1).  The area lies between 10032’–10033’N and 76016’–76017’E and is located very close to thePeechi-Vazhani Wildlife Sanctuary, Western Ghats, the aerial distance of which is not more than 5km.  The campus has a total area of 391.44ha.and the major habitats include garden lands, botanical garden, plantations of rubber, coconut, plantain, cocoa and orchards of mango, jackfruit, sapota and guava.  KAU campus enjoys a moderate climate.  The ten-year mean minimum temperature is 23.30C and ten-year mean maximum of 31.80C.  The area receives south‑west and north‑east monsoons, the greater portion of the rainfall, however is received from the south-westmonsoon between June and September. The mean annual rainfall is 2763mm.  The mean number of rainy days per year is 110 days (KAU weather station, 2010).

Methods: The butterfly fauna of the campus was surveyed from November 2009 to December 2011.  The whole campus was divided into two broad habitats such as plantations (rubber, cocoa, banana and fruit orchards) with an area of 89.65ha and natural habitats having an area of 301.79ha.  These two habitats were surveyed on foot at least once a week.  The butterfly species were also photo-documented during the study period.  Species identity was confirmed with the help of the field guides by Kunte(2000) and Kehimkar (2008), taxonomy and nomenclature have been updated after Kunte et al. (2011).  Butterflies observed were categorized into five groups based on their abundance during the period of study.  Accordingly, those species observed 80–100 % of the survey days were categorized as very common (VC), 60–80 % as common (C), 40–60 % as occasional (O), 20–40% as rare (R) and below 20% as very rare (VR).

Results and Discussion: A total of 139 species of butterflies belonging to six families were identified from the KAU campus, including four species that are endemic to the Western Ghats and nine species protected under various schedules of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 (Table 1).

The family-wise distribution of butterflies of KAU campus is given in Fig. 2.  Family Nymphalidae(brush-footed butterflies) dominated the butterfly fauna of KAU campus with 44 species followed by Lycaenidae (blues) 35 species, Hesperiidae (skippers) 34 species, Pieridae(whites and yellows) 13 species, Papilionidae(swallow-tails) 12 species, and Riodinidae (judies and punches) with a single species.

Among the two broad habitat types at KAU, species richness was found to be more in natural areas with 124 species followed by plantations (98) (Fig. 3).  Habitat preferences of butterfly families (Fig. 4) also show that the natural habitats have more number of species when compared to the man-modified habitats.

This observation is quite significant and it emphasizes the importance of University campuses in the conservation of biological diversity of a region.

 

 

References

 

Ambrose, D.P. & D.S. Raj (2005). Butterflies of Kalakad-MundanthuraiTiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu. Zoo’s Print Journal 20(12): 2100–2107; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.ZPJ.1312.2100-7  

Arun, P. R. (2003). Butterflies of Siruvani forests of Western Ghats with notes on their seasonality. Zoo’s Print Journal 18(2):1003–1006; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.ZPJ.18.2.1003-6

Eswaran, R. & P. Pramod (2005). Structure of butterfly community of Anaikatty Hills, Western Ghats.Zoo’s Print Journal 20(8): 1939–1942; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.ZPJ.1330.1939-42

Evans, W.H. (1932). The Identification of Indian Butterflies. 2nd Edition. Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India, 464pp+32pl.

Kehimkar, I. (2008). The Book of Indian Butterflies. Bombay Natural History Society, 497pp.

Kocher, S.D. & E.H. Williams (2000). The diversity and abundance of North American butterflies vary with habitat disturbances and geography. Journal of Biogeography 27: 785–794

Kremen, C. (1992). Assessing the Indicator Properties of Species Assemblages for Natural Areas Monitoring. Ecological Applications 2: 203–217.

Kunte, K. (1997). Seasonal patterns in butterfly abundance and species diversity in four tropical habitats in northern Western Ghats. Journal of Biosciences 22: 593-603.

Kunte, K. (2000). Butterflies of Peninsular India. Universities Press (Hyderabad) and Indian Academy of Sciences (Bengaluru), 270pp.

Kunte, K., S. Kalesh& U. Kodandaramaiah (eds.). (2011). Butterflies of India. v. 1.03. Indian Foundation for Butterflies, Bengaluru.<http://ifoundbutterflies.org/>, Accessed 2012.

Mathew, G. & V.K. Rahamathulla (1993). Studies on the butterflies of Silent Valley National Park. Entomon 18(3): 185–192. 

Palot, M.J., V.C. Balakrishnan & S. Kalesh(2012). An updated checklist of butterflies of Kerala, with their Malayalam names. Malabar Trogon 9(3): 22–29.

Pollard, E. (1991). Monitoring butterfly numbers, pp. 87–111. In: Goldsmith, F.B (ed.). Monitoring for Conservation and Ecology. Chapman and Hall, London, 275pp.

Prasad, G., P.V. Prathibakumari & A.M. Lizby(2010). Butterflies of Kerala University Campus, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. 3rd Asian Lepidoptera Conservation Symposium and Training Programme, 25–29 October 2010, Coimbatore, India.

Sudheendrakumar, V. V., C. F. Binoy, P.V. Suresh & G. Mathew (2000). Habitat association of butterflies in the ParambikulamWildlife Sanctuary, Kerala, India. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 97(2): 193–201.

Toms, A., S.P. Narayanan, Babu, V. Padmakumar, B. Arun, N.D. Jaisen, J. Paul, M. deepa, K. Jisha, K.K. Jayasooryan, J. Ranjini, C. Rathy, P.N. Sreejith, G. Christopher & A.P. Thomas (2010). Butterfly  fauna of the Mahatma Gandhi University campus, Kerala and the strategies adopted for its conservation. 3rd Asian Lepidoptera Conservation Symposium and Training Programme, 25–29 October 2010, Coimbatore, India.