no 



Imcrtebnilf.s — Oui Liviii); Ki'.\<iiirct'S 



Fig. 2. Species discoveiT curve 

 tor all Lepidoptera at the Big 

 Creek Reserve, Monterey County. 

 California, based on collections 

 during 1980-93. The total (910 

 species! is believed to be more 

 than 90% of the resident fauna. 

 Points along the curve are indicat- 

 ed when 50%. 67%. 15%. and 

 90% of the recorded total were 

 reached. 



1,000 - 



For further information: 



Jerry A. Powell 



Essig Museum of Entomology 



University of California. Berkeley 



201 WellmanHall 



Berkeley. CA 94720 



20 40 60 80 too 120 140 160 180 

 No of dales 



The data liom Big Creek and other invento- 

 ries (e.g.. Butler and Kondo 1991) demonstrate 

 that short-term effort is inadequate to inventory 

 insects. We cannot determine faunal composi- 

 tion from a few visits to a site or even compre- 

 hensive sampling over one season. If a group 

 under study is relatively uniform in biology, one 

 sampling or trapping technique may be ade- 

 quate and a steeper species accumulation curve 

 can be attained. At Big Creek, all Lepidoptera 

 accumulation did not reach 50% until 25 dates, 

 or 75% until 65 dates (Fig. 2). 



Planning Inventories 



A comprehensive inventory should employ 

 diverse sampling approaches, as outlined previ- 

 ously. Light trapping alone may be expected to 

 recover about 75% of the species after extended 

 effort. If monitoring changes in populations is a 

 goal, a subset of the fauna (e.g.. one or a few 

 well-known families) should be the focus, with 

 sampling standardized by method (e.g., light 

 trap), site, frequency, and so forth, so as to be 

 repeatable. To make local inventories compara- 

 ble, data should be identified in several ways: 

 ( 1 ) results should be recorded by standardized 

 subsets of the area; (2) sampling effort should 

 be quantified and reported (e.g., number of per- 

 son-hours or days, dates. UV samples); (3) first 

 records for each species should be recorded to 

 document species discovery rates; (4) voucher 

 specimens should be preserved, especially for 

 small moths, because detailed study by a spe- 

 cialist may be necessary to distinguish species. 

 Ideally, every specimen can be bar-coded to the 

 data base, a rapid process if carried out in tan- 

 dem with data entry initially as is being done in 

 Costa Rica (Janzen 1992). 



We do not know how many species of moths 

 and butterflies live in any state, county, or local- 



ity in North America. We need baseline inven- 

 tories that are standardized by area or sampling 

 effort by which different parts of the continent 

 or tropical faunas can be compared to extrapo- 

 late patterns in regional, national, or world bio- 

 diversity of Lepidoptera. 



References 



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Blower. A.E. 1974-86. A list of the Lepidoptera of Maine. 

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Butler. L., and V. Kondo 1991. Macrolepidopterous moths 

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