Impact of forest management systems on diversity and abundance of butterflies at Asenanyo forest reserve, Ghana
Loading...
Date
2017-11-30
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Applied Biosciences
Abstract
Objectives: Every forest management practice characteristically affects the structural elements of forests, which
eventually influences the habitat conditions of biodiversity living in it. These practices, which may represent
various forms of disturbance regimes could influence butterfly species richness, abundance and relationship
with their hosts. This study was conducted in the Asenanyo River Forest Reserve in the Ashanti Region of
Ghana to determine the impact of forest management systems on the diversity and abundance of butterflies in
the forest reserve.
Methodology and Results: The transect method using standard fruit baited traps were employed to capture
butterflies in an unlogged, selectively logged and plantation forest management zones. Eight trap net stations
spaced at 100 m interval on a 1 km transect were used for the butterfly sampling. This was replicated each
other month in all the study areas for a period of six months; each transect was located about 500 m from each
other. Shannon-Wiener and Simpson’s diversity indexes were used to analyze species richness and diversity of
butterflies. The selectively logged forest zone recorded the largest number of butterflies (968) whiles the
plantation recorded the least number of butterflies (466). Shannon-Wiener and Simpson’s indices for the
selectively logged forest and unlogged forest were similar. Shannon-Wiener and Simpson’s indexes were
however significantly higher in the unlogged than in the plantation forest (P< 0.05).
Conclusion and application of findings: The findings of the study indicated that selective logging could be
considered as a good alternative to preserve butterflies in production reserves.
Description
An article published by Journal of Applied Biosciences 119: 11839-11848; 2017. Available at
https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jab.v119i1.2
Keywords
Citation
Journal of Applied Biosciences 119: 11839-11848