The Study On The Butterfly Community Ecology Along The Urban Habitat Gradient

From May 2005 to April 2006, to investigate the butterfly diversity in Chongqing Municipality, we selected five sampling sections along the urban-rural habitat gradient from Shaping District to Beibei District, namely Shaping Park, Nanxikou, Huitoupo, Jigong Mountain, and Jinyun Mountain. A total of 5,370 butterfly individuals were collected, belonging to 11 families, 43 genera and 68 species. Of these, the dominant species were Pieris canidia, P. rapae, and Pseudozizeeria maha, while common species were Papilio polytes, P. bianor, P. xuthus, Graphium sarpedon, Eurema hecabe, Polygonia caureum, Tongeia filicaudis, and Parnara guttata. The species in Satyridae and Nymphalidae families were the most, and they were the dominant species. Of the 68 species, 36 species were in east asia, accounted for 52.9% of the total; 25 species were both in east asia and age-north, accounted for 36.8% of the total;7 species were widely distributed over the study area, accounted for 10.3% of the total. Chongqing Municipality is in the west of China, semitropical range, the distribution of butterfly reflected the zoology- geography characteristic.Pieris canidia and P. rapae were almost the dominant species in every sampling sections, even in Shaping Park in which human disturbance was strong, they were more resistable to the disturbance. They should serve as the representative species of urban butterfly. Parantica sita, Stichophthalma howqua, Acraea issoria, Libythea celtis and Zemeros flegyas only lived in the sampling sections with good condition. So, they should serve as good indictor of the environmental quality. The number of Graphium sarpedon along the urban-rural habitat gradient showed a notable change. It should serve as good indictor of the environmental changes.The diversity indexes ranked in the following order:Jinyun Mountain>Huitoupo>Jigong Mountain>Nanxikou>Shaping Park. It is concluded that butterfly diversity, which is the highest in Jinyun Mountain and lowest in Shaping Park, increases with vegetation richness, vegetation coverage, and sunlight. Being significantly impacted by urbanization, butterfly diversity can serve as an effective indicator of urban environmental quality and change.Human disturbance could directly affect butterfly diversity. Strong disturbance could heabily affect butterfly diversity, while the disturbance was relatively weak, intermediate disturbance could make active effect. Vegetation richness and vegetation coverage were important factor for butterfly diversity, which was consistent to them. Temperature, humidity...