Butterfly Diversity In Different Types Of Habitat Under Rapid Urbanization

From May2011to October2011, and February2012to April2012, to investigatethe butterfly diversity in Liangjiang new district of Chongqing, we set a transect alongurban habitat gradient from city center under frequent human disturbance to Yufengmountain with week human disturbance. We selected four sampling sections includingsix habitat types, along the urban-rural habitat gradient. The artificial secondary forestand artificial grassland local on section one, the seedling forest and wasted grasslandlocal on section two, the cropland local on section three, and natural secondary forestlocal on section four. A total of1,615butterfly individuals were collected, belonging to6families,27genera and37species. Of these, the dominant species were Pieris canidia,P. rapae, Pseudozizeeria maha and Tongeia filicaudis, while common species wereGraphium sarpedon, P. bianor, P. melete, Neope bremeri, Lethe chandica, Vanessacardui, Polygonia c-aureum and Everes argiades. The dominat species show morefitness for urban environment than other species, and should serve as the representativespecies of urban butterfly. P. canidia、P. rapae and T. filicaudis, which had suchadvantage as wide ecological amplitude, were found in all of the four sections.Moreover the P. canidia and P. rapae show earlily within a year.The diversity indexes ranked in the following order: section four>section two>section three> section one. The butterfly individual was found firstly in section twoand section three within a year. The diversity indexes almostly decreased withurbanazition level along a gradient of urbanization, while impacted by habitatheterogeneity. The section four has not only the highest diversity indexes, but also themost endemic species among four sections. The section one has the lowest diversityindexes and none endemic species.The diversity indexes ranked in the following order: natural secondary forest>wasted grassland> seedling forest> cropland> artificial secondary forest> artificialgrassland. The diversity indexes increased with habitat heterogeneity, habitat origin andconnection with other habitat. The similarity of different butterfly communitiesincreased with the similarity of vegetation and spatial structure between different habitattypes.As a whole, along the urban-rural habitat gradient, butterfly species and diversityhad notable changes. Urbanization affected butterfly species and diversity. The diversity indexes changed with habitat quality even in the same urbanization level. Beingsignificantly impacted by urbanization, butterfly diversity can serve as an effectiveindicator of urban environmental quality and change.The natural secondary forest has the highest diversity indexes, and therefore shouldbe protected firstly in the process of urbanization. Meanwhile, there are other greenareas, even the park in the city center, provide some butterfly habitat. All of these greenareas should be protected. In the process of urbanization, there are many negativeinfluences, such as habitat fragmentation, changes in plant composition, humandisturbance, environmental pollution and temperature increases, to butterflies. Weshould rebuild habitat for butterflies according to its habitat requirement of feeding,visiting flowers, thermoregulation and territorial behavior. Building up a network ofurban habitat based on high quality urban green spaces for butterfly, is helpful tobutterfly diversity even urban biodiversity.