In-situ Conservation of Some Butterfly Species Population of Koti Women’s College Campus, Hyderabad (Telangana) India

Abstract

In-situ conservation of some species of Butterfly  population (order: Lepidoptera ) in the University  campus of Koti Women’s college and its vicinity in  Hyderabad (Telangana) India was undertaken, owing  to their importance in the terrestrial ecosystem.  Conserving butterfly species will result in the  improved environment enriched with survival  benefits for the other organisms also. One of the main  aims of the present work is to stop the declines and  conserve the most threatened butterfly species by in situ conservation method encouraging the growth of  the plants that attract the butterflies and also to  introduce them in other places as well, where there is  decline in their distribution. The significance of the  study is to introduce them in the places where there is  abundance of the flowering plants but without any  butterfly species and also to connect to the other areas  outside the campus to achieve a widespread distribution and conservation of them, a method of  typical land scaping approach and to bring awareness  among the people about the importance of their  conservation. There is a dire need to ascertain the  causes for the absence of the butterflies and to  encourage them to increase in numbers in such  natural habitats by corrective measures thereby  conserving the species. Therefore, a study was  initiated to record the number of different species of  butterflies available in the college campus by selecting  different locations. A total of 26 species of butterflies belonging to three different families i.e.,  Nymphalidae, Pieridae and Papilionidae, were  recorded during the study period from June 2014 to  Dec 2019. During the course of the study it was  observed that the family Nymphalidae was dominant  followed by Pieridae and Papilionidae in terms of  both species composition and the total number. Nymphalidae accounted for about 57.3%, Pieridae  25.7% and Papilionidae at 16.9%. It was also observed that the numbers gradually  increased in the campus today when compared to the  initial study due to the efforts made. The campus is  the source for the butterfly species to be distributed in  different areas.