Study on the Relationship between Landscape Characteristics of Fragmented Urban Green Spaces and Distribution of Urban Butterflies - Application of Object-based Satellite Image Analysis -

The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between the distribution of small-scale green spaces and butterfly assemblages in urbanizing areas located north-east of Ichikawa City. Landscape indices of green cover distribution with a diversity index H of vegetation types and a number of different vegetation types, GCI (Green Cluster Index) of each vegetation type and average minimum distance from each vegetation type were calculated in different ranges from survey root units, using highresolution green cover data made by object-based classification of Quickbird multi-spectral image. Analyses on the relationship between the richness (number of species, Shannon-Weaver’s H’ and combination of species types) of butterfly species in survey root units and the landscape indices around them, were executed by using Classification and Regression Trees (CART). The forest (interior) species were thought to be appropriate indicators of the width of butterfly assemblages, and the gathering of evergreen woods, deciduous woods and bamboo groves in small range guaranteed by the large-scale mosaic of those green covers were thought to be influential on their existence in the study area. * Corresponding author. This is useful to know for communication with the appropriate person in cases with more than one author.