Species List and Temporal Trends of a Butterfly Community in an Urban Remnant in the Atlantic Forest

The Brazilian Atlantic Forest is currently reduced to a few, small fragments surrounded by anthropic landscapes. Urban forest remnants play an important role in housing biodiversity in urbanized areas and enabling species dispersion between larger natural areas. Describing and monitoring the biodiversity in these anthropized environments is a useful tool for urban ecology and species conservation. By compiling long-term data, this study proposes a species list of tropical diurnal butterflies for an Atlantic Forest remnant in Southeastern Brazil and describes the temporal diversity patterns of the community. Inventories were carried out from the 1970s to 2000 to record butterfly incidence data in a 250 ha fragment of seasonal, semideciduous Atlantic Forest, resulting in a species list of 706 species presented here for the first time for the studied area. From 1998 to 2000, weekly standardized observations enabled inferences on temporal trends in butterfly diversity. Total species richness peaked in the climatic transitions, and a cycle of 52 weeks was reported for beta diversity. Butterfly families lack synchronized temporal fluctuations. Nymphalidae and specifically the fruit-feeding nymphalids were considered good surrogates for short-term studies and monitoring community changes.