Temporal Variation in and Influence of Environmental Variables on a Lepidopteran Community in a Mediterranean Mid-Mountain Area

Abstract

The temporal variation in a community of nocturnal and diurnal Lepidoptera was studied in a Mediterranean mid-mountain area of the SW Iberian Peninsula between 2017 and 2019. Monthly samplings that allowed for the identification of 3528 specimens, belonging to 373 species from 40 different families, also provided data on the temporal and seasonal variation in richness and the abundance (dominated by Geometridae and Noctuidae), diet type (mainly oligophagous), voltinism (mostly univoltine) and biogeography of the community, primarily Mediterranean in scope. Richness, abundance and diversity were also found to be highly positively correlated with temperature and solar radiation, and less negatively correlated with precipitation and humidity. Canonical correspondence analyses (CCAs) also indicate that temperature and radiation are the climatic variables with the greatest influence on species occurrence over the different months of the year. The CCAs gave a cumulative variance value of 84.79% when using the monthly mean values of temperature, solar radiation and minimum relative humidity, and 86.4% if only monovoltine species were considered. Guidelines to maintain diversity in the environment of the study area are provided. It is possible that the area may function as a refuge area for Lepidoptera in the face of climate change and deforestation that are occurring in the geographical environment.