A Comparative Study Of The Butterfly Fauna In Natural Forest And Pinus Plantation At North Nandi District, Kenya
Abstract
The studies were conducted in two 10 ha plots in
the North Nandi Forest, one in natural forest and one
in planted. forest with exotic. Pinus sp. Using Malaise
traps, Visual counts and Capture-mark-release recapture
techniques, records were made of the butterfly species
occurring in each habitat for comparative analysis. A
total of seven butterfly families comprising of 128
species were found in the two habitats. This number
forms about 14% of the total Kenya butterfly fauna.
The natural forest had a Shannon - Weiner index of 3.96
while the Pinus forest had an index of 2.61. Sixty four
species were recorded exclusively in the natural
forest as against seven from the soft-wood Pinus forest.
The Pinus forest had the highest number of species in
March contrasting with the natural forest, in which the
highest diversity occurred in 'January. Some congeners
were temporally separated. Two new records of larval
food plants for Mylothris poppea were determined.
Estimation of survival rate of Amauris sp. were
made for the Pinus plantation, where the insects were
abundant. The changes in the survival reflected the
onset of the-dry period during which the survival rate
increased. The rate was 0.68 per week during the wet
period and 0.76 in dry period indicating an expectation
of life of 2.59 weeks and 3.64 weeks for ·the wet and dry
period, respectively. This finding is about 2 - 21/2 times
that of most of the temperate Lepidoptera
Citation
Odanga, JFE (1986). A Comparative Study Of The Butterfly Fauna In Natural Forest And Pinus Plantation At North Nandi District, Kenya. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science of the University of Nairobi in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Science in Biology of Conservation.Publisher
University of Nairobi School of Biological Sciences,