Abundance and richness of Arctiinae moths throughout the night in a Cerrado area

Abstract

The main goal of this work was to investigate how the abundance and richness of Arctiinae moths varies over time, during the night. Specifically, we analyzed the following questions: (1) Is there a relationship between Arctiinae abundance and richness with the temperature and relative humidity? (2) What are the hours of activity of each species of moth? (3) Does the species composition differ over night? (4) Is it necessary to sample this group of moths throughout the night to have a representative sample of the species? We sampled the moths in Emas National Park (17°49’-18°28’S and 52°39’-53°10’W), Brazil. We selected seven sampling points in an area of savanna. At each sampling point, we collected the Arctiinae moths with a light trap (with a 15-W black light fluorescent light bulb), reflected in a white cloth (2 x 3 m) extended vertically. We sampled the moths in seven consecutive nights (one night in each sampling point, from December 13 to December 19, 2012, from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m.). We divided the samplings in twelve periods over the night, with an hour each. At each period of time, we measured the temperature and the relative humidity with a digital termohygrometer. We sampled 149 individuals belonging to 17 species of Arctiinae moths. Most species (70.5%) were active only for one or two hours at night. The species differed in terms of time activity. The higher abundance occurred at 8 p. m. (44 individuals), followed by 38 individuals at 9 p. m. and 23 at 10 p. m. The species richness was also higher in the early hours of the night. The temperature was the only variable that showed a positive and significative relationship with the Arctiinae moth abundance. The species richness was not influenced neither by the temperature nor by the relative air humidity. The possible causes of the peak of abundance and species richness in specific hours of the night are discussed.

Exploring the power of moth samples to reveal community patterns along shallow ecological gradients

“…Although this caused some variation in sampling duration, we expected no big effects on sample composition, as most moths are on the wing till midnight and only a few new species can be found later on (Sato et al, 1986). In tropical ecosystems, a considerable fraction of moths are also on the wing after midnight (de Camargo et al, 2016; Moreno et al, 2021; Scherrer et al, 2013). Yet in temperate‐zone ecosystems air temperature drops substantially in the course of the night, reducing moth flight activity during most nights steadily after midnight (Adams et al, 1995; Nowinszky et al, 2007; Taylor, 1963; Taylor & Carter, 1961).…”

“…Although this caused some variation in sampling duration, we expected no big effects on sample composition, as most moths are on the wing till midnight and only a few new species can be found later on (Sato et al, 1986). In tropical ecosystems, a considerable fraction of moths are also on the wing after midnight (de Camargo et al, 2016;Moreno et al, 2021;Scherrer et al, 2013).…”

“…One basic assumption is that with more species being included, community composition patterns become clearer, resulting in recommendations to always include as many species as possible. Yet, many empirical studies have focused specifically on ‘macro‐moth’ communities (De Smedt et al, 2019; Merckx et al, 2019; Valtonen et al, 2017) or only taken a few Lepidopteran families into account (Heidrich et al, 2021; Moreno et al, 2021), as the identification, especially of micro‐moths, is considered difficult and labor‐intensive. A solution to include the whole species set without spending too much time on identification work is arising with new methods such as meta‐barcoding (Aagaard et al, 2017; Jin et al, 2013).…”