In-situ Conservation of Some Butterfly Species Population of Koti Women’s College Campus, Hyderabad (Telangana) India

Abstract

In-situ conservation of some species of Butterfly population (order: Lepidoptera) in the University campus of Koti Women’s college and its vicinity in Hyderabad (Telangana) India was undertaken, owing to their importance in the terrestrial ecosystem. Conserving butterfly species will result in the improved environment enriched with survival benefits for the other organisms also. One of the main aims of the present work is to stop the declines and conserve the most threatened butterfly species by in- situ conservation method encouraging the growth of the plants that attract the butterflies and also to introduce them in other places as well, where there is decline in their distribution. The significance of the study is to introduce them in the places where there is abundance of the flowering plants but without any butterfly species and also to connect to the other areas outside the campus to achieve a widespread distribution and conservation of them, a method of typical land scaping approach and to bring awareness among the people about the importance of their conservation. There is a dire need to ascertain the causes for the absence of the butterflies and to encourage them to increase in numbers in such natural habitats by corrective measures thereby conserving the species. Therefore, a study was initiated to record the number of different species of butterflies available in the college campus by selecting different locations. A total of 26 species of butterflies belonging to three different families i.e., Nymphalidae, Pieridae and Papilionidae, were recorded during the study period from June 2014 to Dec 2019. During the course of the study it was observed that the family Nymphalidae was dominant followed by Pieridae and Papilionidae in terms of both species composition and the total number. Nymphalidae accounted for about 57.3%, Pieridae 25.7% and Papilionidae at 16.9%. It was also observed that the numbers gradually increased in the campus today when compared to the initial study due to the efforts made. The campus is the source for the butterfly species to be distributed in different areas.