A continued baseline assessment of fruit-feeding Nymphalid butterfly abundance and diversity between habitats at Firestone Center for Restoration Ecology in Costa Rica

Nymphalid butterflies are a diverse tropical group that has shown promise as an ‘indicator species’ of habitat health. This classification correlates to their sensitivity to both climatic and ecological disturbance due to a relatively short life cycle and host-plant reliance (DeVries 1987). For the past two years, changes in the number of fruit-feeding Nymphalid butterfly individuals and species have been recorded at the Firestone Center for Restoration Ecology, in southwestern Costa Rica (Haber 2005 & 2006). Originally lowland rainforest, the land was converted to a cattle farm in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and since 1993, has been the subject of restoration and sustainable forestry efforts. The center is now covered primarily by secondary tropical moist forest along with smaller patches of bamboo and pastureland and a few relatively mature riparian zones.