Effect of Ecological Factors on Butterflies of Various Agro-Climatic Landscapes in Mysore District, Karnataka, India

Aim: Butterflies survival is strongly interlinked with environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and rainfall. The aim of this study was to find out the influence of ecological factors namely: temperature, humidity, rainfall and wind flow across different agro-climatic landscapes of Mysore district, Karnataka. Materials and Methods: Prevailed environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and rainfall constitute the local climate which was collected using a digital thermo-hygrometer. Wind speed data was obtained using the website www.timeanddate.com and site wise rainfall data was collected from https://chrsdata.eng.uci.edu. Different standard methods namely: all-out search method, variable width line transect method and point count method were adopted to survey butterflies across various human-modified and managed habitats of rural and urban landscapes of Mysore district, Karnataka, during August, 2022 to October, 2023. Results: Correlation between butterfly abundance and ecological factors was calculated using Microsoft excel 2019. Results indicated that abundance of butterflies was high at cultivable land for agriculture, followed by park, road verge, aquatic habitat, institutional campus, nursery, residential area and weedy vegetation. Correlation coefficient for temperature (r=-0.54, t=-2.32) and relative humidity (r=0.51, t=2.16) was significant at institutional campus. Correlation coefficient for wind speed was significant at the vicinity of aquatic habitat, road verge and cultivable land for agriculture (r=0.67, 0.55 and 0.31) (t=2.59, 2.91 and 2.34). The correlation coefficient for rainfall was not significant at any of the agro-climatic landscapes. Conclusion: Perhaps environmental factors might have influenced the life cycle of many butterfly species and showed sensitivity to the changing environmental conditions. Thus, butterflies’ survival is strongly interlinked with the locally prevailed environmental factors; their ecology depends on optimum temperature and relative humidity. Rainfall indirectly influences species composition by maintaining vegetation diversity. Therefore, restoration of a good local climate is thus important to protect locally existing butterfly fauna midst agro-climatic landscapes for human advantage. This kind of investigation is very needed in the present context to undertake suitable conservation measures to protect the locally existing butterflies and in turn to protect the local biodiversity.