Survey of the Andean Butterfly Fauna of Ecuador (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea)

Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Survey of the Andean Butterfly Fauna of Ecuador The purpose of this award is to contribute to the cataloging of the World's declining biodiversity and to make that knowledge available to specialists and the general public. Butterflies constitute perhaps the most familiar, conspicuous and well-studied group of insects. This award will be instrumental in aiding a comprehensive survey of the butterfly fauna of the Ecuadorian Andes, one of the most species-rich but also threatened habitats on Earth. This project has two main objectives: to compile and synthesize data on the geographic and elevational distribution of the c. 2600 species of butterflies occurring in Andean Ecuador, with critical evaluation of the taxonomic status of all species; and to continue to improve the national collection in Ecuador and train Ecuadorian scientists in bioinventory techniques. Field work will take place in under-sampled regions of the country, concentrate on taxonomic groups poorly represented in existing collections, and use a variety of underutilized field techniques to maximize the number of known and undescribed species recorded from each study site. This project will result in the most complete inventory of the butterfly fauna for any Andean country. It is estimated that as many as 200 species within the study area will need to be described. Identification keys will be published in journals and in interactive, electronic form to be accessible to non-specialists. Information on the distributions for all species will be presented as an electronic database supplied to principal conservation groups within Ecuador and made available on the World Wide Web. Comprehensive specimen collections will be deposited in the USA and the host country, in addition to a collection of alcohol-preserved material for molecular study. It is hoped that the collections within the host country and published taxonomic studies will provide the basis for a long-term, national research program on butterfly systematics, biology and conservation. The distributional data set will be the largest, most extensive and at the finest spatial scale available for any group of Neotropical insects. The potential applications of these data are numerous, including testing biogeographical hypotheses concerning the origins of the west Andean (Choco) fauna and the montane faunas on both slopes, examining the effects of elevational gradients on species richness, testing the value of butterflies and butterfly groups as indicators of biodiversity, mapping the strength and type of biogeographic transition zones throughout the country, investigating patterns of species richness and endemism, and identifying priority areas for conservation in these highly threatened Andean forests.