The hourly distribution of moths caught by light-trap in a tipical mediterranean ecosistem (The dehesa)

A posibility to detect the climate change
_________________________________________________

Authors: Óscar Rodríguez de Rivera, Pablo Cobos, Ignacio Arizmendi & Isabel Angulo

Zoology Department

School of Forestry and Natural Environment Engineering

Polytechnic University of Madrid

oscar.rodriguezderivera@upm.es

___________________________

the XVIIth European Congress of Lepidopterology

Luxemburg (From 9 to 13 May 2011)
http://www.symposium.lu/sel/

___________________________

In Sylviculture, dehesa is a wooded hill with low tree density and well developed herbaceous layer whose primary use is livestock (Forest Dictionary, 2005).

During 2010 an entomological inventory was developed in Quintos de Mora, (Toledo, Spain), a dehesa ecosystem. One of the studied groups was the nocturnal Lepidoptera by using a light trap.

Light trapping is a method to collecting insect which manifest positive phototaxis which had an important development over the past decades (Nowinszky, 2008).

The variation of the catches with light-trap during the course of a night has been research for years. Williams (1935) used a fractionating light trap to examine flight activity and how it changes during the night. The hourly distribution of catches could be an important method to measure the possible effect of the climate change.

The majority of entomologists do not record the arrival of insects. They make only a qualitative or quantitative analysis of the catches, missing out on valuable information.

The hourly results obtained from May to October 2010, show the distribution of catches ordered by families for the eight fractions of time in which is divided the light trap. These results could be a first step to compare this distribution with other ecosystems, changes in land use in the dehesa and a possible indicator of global warming disorders.

You can access the poster of the Congress on this link