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Abstract
In contrast to the large number of studies addressing the effects of deforestation on insect diversity, few studies have focused on the recovery of diversity during forest restoration. In this study, we investigated the recovery, or chronosequential change, of butterfly species richness during forest restoration after cessation of swidden cultivation in a humid tropical rainforest region in Borneo. Through conducting censuses on butterflies at 21 study plots, placed at open habitats adjoining edges of forest stands that differed in elapsed years after cessation (<3, 5–13, and 20–60 year-old fallows, and isolated and large-area primary forests), we obtained presence or absence data on 132 butterfly species. The cumulative number of observed species was significantly higher at two types of primary forests than at three types of fallows; significantly higher at two older fallows than the youngest fallows; and not significantly different between the two older fallows. The species number in the older fallows was less than half that of either type of primary forest. The numbers of species at the oldest fallows and isolated primary forests significantly decreased with distance from the large-area primary forests, and the majority of butterflies observed in the fallows were also observed in the primary forests. These results suggest that although the species richness of forest-edge-dwelling butterflies recovers in the initial 20 years of forest restoration, the recovery pace decreases thereafter and depends on the presence of large-area primary forest in the vicinity. It is suggested that forest fragmentation also decreases butterfly diversity.
Acknowledgments
Our study was conducted in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Sarawak Forestry Corporation and the Japan Research Consortium for Tropical Forests in Sarawak in November 2005. We thank Ms L. Chong and Mr H. Kaliang for help with the approval procedure to gain permission to conduct the study. We also thank Dr K. Momose, Dr S. Sakai, and Prof N. Yamamura for their extensive support of our study, Dr T. Matsumoto, Dr H. O. Tanaka, Mr D. Matsumoto and Mr T. Okubo for their assistance work, and Dr M. Yamashita for providing the map information of our plots. This study was financially supported by the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (project number P 2–5and D-04) and JSPS KAKENHI (23570111 to MY).
Notes
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10310-014-0444-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.