Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 July
2019 | 11(9): 14235–14237
Butterflies collected using malaise traps
as useful bycatches for ecology and conservation
Augusto Henrique Batista Rosa 1, Lucas
Neves Perillo 2, Frederico
Siqueira Neves 3, Danilo Bandini Ribeiro 4 & André
Victor Lucci Freitas 5
1,2,3 Departamento de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal
de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
4 Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal
de Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande, Brazil.
5 Departamento de Biologia Animal and Museu de Zoologia, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.
1 augustohbrosa@hotmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 lucasnevesperillo@gmail.com, 3 fred.neves@gmail.com,
4 biodbr@gmail.com, 5 baku@unicamp.br
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4919.11.9.14235-14237
| ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:4AB63CE1-54BA-4B33-88C9-F722361DBF53
Editor: Anonymity requested. Date of publication: 26
July 2019 (online & print)
Manuscript details: #4919 | Received 28 February 2019 | Finally accepted 05 July 2019
Citation: Rosa, A.H.B., L.N. Perillo, F.S. Neves, D.B. Ribeiro & A.V.L. Freitas (2019). Butterflies collected using malaise traps as useful
bycatches for ecology and conservation. Journal of Threatened Taxa 11(9): 14235–14237. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4919.11.9.14235-14237
Copyright: © Rosa et al. 2019. Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and
distribution of this article in any medium by adequate credit to the author(s)
and the source of publication.
Funding: Conselho Nacional
de Desenvolvimento Científico
e Tecnológico (CNPq) -
303834/2015-3, 130314/2016-1; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) – Finance Code 001; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
(FAPESP) - 2011/50225-3; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG); National Science
Foundation (NSF) - DEB-1256742.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing
interests.
Acknowledgements: We thank funding agencies for
support this scientific study, the ICMBIO for the collecting permits (SISBIO
10438-1, 53016-10, 42055-2) and the IEF (UC 36/2015-16/214). Butterfly species
are are registered in the SISGEN (A190A3E).
Sampling insects using flight interception traps
(e.g., malaise traps) is very effective for taxonomic, population, and
community studies (Matthews & Matthews 1971; Campbell & Hanula 2007; Perillo et al.
2017). This method is generally focused
on the collection of flying insect groups such as Hymenoptera, Diptera, and Coleoptera (Gressitt & Gressitt 1962;
Brown 2005; Souza et al. 2015); however, other insect groups too are frequently
sampled as bycatches and their information can be certainly used for several
purposes. From 2013 to 2016, a study on
hymenopteran communities (bees and wasps of Aculeata)
was carried out throughout the Espinhaço Mountain
range (12 sample locations, 700–2,070 m) in the Brazilian states of Minas
Gerais and Bahia. In total, 120 malaise
traps were maintained in the field for 10 consecutive days during the rainy
season from November to February. A
total of 1,000 butterflies belonging to six families, namely, Pieridae (n=353), Nymphalidae
(n=274), Hesperiidae (n=205), Lycaenidae
(n=139), Riodinidae (n=17), and Papilionidae
(n=12), were captured during the study period.
As expected, because of the collecting method (many insects captured
together in an ethanol-filled recipient), most butterflies became mangled and
discoloured, making them hard to identify (Fig. 1; Schmidt 2016). Nevertheless, three interesting species were
reported among in the collected material as they were either threatened,
endemic, or undescribed (all from Minas Gerais State) (Fig. 1). These were: 1. Strymon
ohausi (Spitz, 1933) (Lycaenidae;
Image 1A (ZUEC-LEP 11044); 2. Yphthimoides cipoensis (Freitas, 2004) (Nymphalidae;
Image 1B (ZUEC-LEP 11045) (both deposited at the Zoology Museum in Campinas
University, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil); and 3. an undescribed species of Aricoris (Riodinidae;
Image 1C (LAK-479, LAK-481 and LAK-482; in process of description, not yet
formally deposited in a collection)).
The lycaenid S. ohausi is
considered Endangered (EN) in the Brazilian Red List of threatened fauna; a
single individual was collected in Botumirim State
Park, Botumirim, representing a new occurrence record
for the species. For the nymphalid Y.
cipoensis, an endemic species previously known
from three localities in the Serra do Espinhaço
(Freitas 2004), seven individuals were collected in five localities, which are
all new occurrence records for the species.
An undescribed species of Aricoris (Riodinidae) (J.R. Lemes &
L.A. Kaminski pers. comm. January, 2018), identified primarily by DNA sequencing, was
collected in two localities and will add important geographic information for
its description. The new records were
important in expanding the distribution ranges of the former two species. For S. ohausi,
the extent of occurrence (EOO) and occupancy area (AOO) increased from
423,600km2 and 48km2 to 472,500km2 and 52km2,
respectively. For Y. cipoensis, the increase in both EOO and AOO were
much larger, from 22km2 and 12km2 to 6,800km2
and 36km2, respectively. This
means that the assessment for Y. cipoensis
under criterion B (geographic distribution) (IUCN 2012) changes from Critically
Endangered (CR B1) to Endangered (EN B2), a more realistic conservation
status. These new records highlight the
importance of storing and making available all collected material in large
biological inventories, even when these are not the focal taxa of the study. In the present case, although most
butterflies in malaise traps got tattered and were difficult to identify, their
data was important for providing relevant information for taxonomic, genetic,
and conservation studies.
For
figure & image – click here
References
Brown, B.V. (2005). Malaise trap catches and the crisis in Neotropical
dipterology. American Entomologist 51(3): 180–183. https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/51.3.180
Campbell, J.W. & J.L. Hanula
(2007). Efficiency of malaise traps and colored pan traps for collecting flower visiting insects
from three forested ecosystems. Journal of Insect Conservation 11(4):
399–408. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-006-9055-4
Freitas, A.V.L. (2004). A new species of Yphthimoides
(Nymphalidae, Satyrinae)
from southeastern Brazil. Journal of the
Lepidopterists’ Society 58(1): 7–12.
Gressitt, J.L. & M.K. Gressitt
(1962). An improved malaise trap. Pacific
Insects 4(1): 87–90.
IUCN (2012). Guidelines for Application of IUCN Red List Criteria
at Regional and National Levels: Version 4.0. Gland, Switzerland &
Cambridge. http://s3.amazonaws.com/iucnredlist-newcms/staging/public/attachments/3101/reg_guidelines_en.pdf.
Electronic version accessed 8 February 2019.
Matthews, R.W. & J.R. Matthews (1971). The malaise trap: its utility and potential for
sampling insect populations. The Great Lakes Entomologist 4(4): 117–122.
Perillo, L.N., F.S. Neves, Y. Antonini
& R.P. Martins (2017).
Compositional changes in bee and wasp communities along Neotropical mountain
altitudinal gradient. PLoS ONE 12(7):
e0182054. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182054
Schmidt, O. (2016). Records of larentiine
moths (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) collected at the
Station Linné in Sweden. Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e7304. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.4.e7304
Souza, M.M.,
L.N. Perillo, B.C. Barbosa & F. Prezoto (2015). Use of flight
interception traps of malaise type and attractive traps for social wasps record
(Vespidae: Polistinae). Sociobiology 62(3): 450–456. https://doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v62i3.708