Diversity and distribution of butterflies in the open and close canopy forests of Cadaclan, San Fernando La Union botanical garden of North Luzon, the Philippines

• Main Authors: Nacua, Alma E., Mohagan, Alma B., Alejandro, Grecebio Jonathan D.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2015
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Biology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/11653
• Institution: De La Salle University

Butterflies were sampled in Cadaclan, San Fernando La Union Botanical Garden (LUBG) of North Luzon to provide information on species-level diversity trend and distribution of butterflies on the open and close canopy portion of the dipterocarp forest from 2012-2014 using field transect method Species accumulation curve shows that additional sampling is needed for the possible turnover of species. Butterfly abundance was higher in open canopy forest with a mean individual of 8.14 per 10 meters out of the 814 total individuals. The close canopy forest had only 4.57 mean individuals for the total of 457. Species level diversity was higher in open canopy forest (H’ = 1.957) compared with the closed canopy forest (H’ = 1.933). These results suggest that butterflies prefer open canopy forest or clearing for their plights. Butterfly spatial distribution was uneven in the dipterocarp forest of LUBG with only 6 species of aggregate assemblages and 98 species with random distribution.