How Many Butterflies Are There in a City of Circa Half a Million People?

Lorena Ramírez-Restrepo, Carlos Andrés Cultid-Medina and Ian MacGregor-Fors
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Lorena Ramírez-Restrepo: Red de Ambiente y Sustentabilidad, Instituto de Ecología, A.C. Carretera antigua a Coatepec 351, El Haya, Xalapa 91070, Mexico
Carlos Andrés Cultid-Medina: Grupo de Investigación en Biología, Ecología y Manejo de Hormigas, Universidad del Valle, Ciudad Universitaria Meléndez, Calle 13 No 100-00, Cali 25360, Colombia
Ian MacGregor-Fors: Red de Ambiente y Sustentabilidad, Instituto de Ecología, A.C. Carretera antigua a Coatepec 351, El Haya, Xalapa 91070, Mexico

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 7, 1-11

Abstract: Urbanization poses severe threats to biodiversity; thus, there is an urge to understand urban areas and their biological, physical, and social components if we aim to integrate sustainable practices as part of their processes. Among urban wildlife groups, butterflies have been used as biological indicators due to their high sensitivity to environmental changes. In this study, we estimated the number of butterflies that live within a neotropical medium-sized city (Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico) using a robust interpolation procedure (ordinary kriging). Our calculations added an average of 1,077,537 (± SE 172) butterfly individuals that dwelt in Xalapa in the surveyed space and time. The interpolation procedures showed to be robust and reliable, and up to some extent conservative. Thus, our results suggest that there are at least 1.8 butterfly individuals per capita in Xalapa. Notably, higher butterfly abundances tended to be recorded near highly vegetated areas and along city borders. Besides providing the basis for further ecological studies, our results will contribute to the crucial need of scientific data that is lacking, but critically important, for adequate urban management and planning, as well as environmental education.

Keywords: abundance; community; Papilionoidea; ordinary kriging; urban ecology; interpolation; citywide survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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