A rapid assessment of Lepidoptera biogeography in the Tuscan Archipelago using economical Malaise traps

Abstract

Although conservation and biogeography of insular populations have been widely addressed, it is often difficult to obtain complete floral and faunistic catalogues. However, comparisons of standardised sample collections may represent a valuable short-cut in investigating insular biogeography. For Lepidoptera, several methods have been proposed to obtain them, but they generally require the presence of the researchers in situ and usually collect one diurnal or nocturnal species only. Butterflies and moths collected by Malaise traps in two years of research in the Tuscan Archipelago were analysed: it was found that Lepidoptera biodiversity in these islands is mainly determined by present day island isolation, as recently shown for the Aegean Archipelago. Moreover, the pattern of similarity among the Lepidoptera collected in the six islands by Malaise traps reflects the general Tuscan Archipelago biogeographic paradigm. In conclusion, this could represent a simple and cheap method to obtain valuable data for conservation and biogoegraphic analyses, mainly when the areas under study are difficult to reach.