PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH. 105(4). 200.^. pp. 1034-1042 STUDIES ON NEW GUINEA MOTHS. 1. INTRODUCTION (LEPIDOPTERA) Scott E. Miller, Vojtech Novotny, and Yves Basset (SEM) Department of Systematic Biology, National Museum of Natural History, Smith-sonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560-0105, U.S.A. (e-mail: miller.scot
[email protected] edu); (VN) Institute of Entomology, Czech Academy of Sciences and Biological Faculty, University of South Bohemia, Branisovska 31, 370 05 Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic; (YB) Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 2072, Balboa, Ancon, Panama Abstract. — This is the first in a series of papers providing taxonomic data in support of ecological and biogeographic studies of moths in New Guinea. The primary study is an extensive inventory of the caterpillar fauna of a lowland rainforest site near Madang, Papua New Guinea, from 1994-2001. The inventory focused on the Lepidoptera com-munity on 71 woody plant species representing 45 genera and 23 families. During the study, 46,457 caterpillars representing 585 species were sampled, with 19,660 caterpillars representing 441 species reared to adults. This introductory contribution is intended to provide background on the project, including descriptions of the study site, sampling methods, and taxonomic methods. Kev Words: Malesia, Papua New Guinea, Lepidoptera, biodiversity, rearing, community ecology A very large portion of tropical biodi-versity consists of herbivorous insects, and among them, Lepidoptera are among the most amenable to study. To better under-stand the structure and maintenance of trop-ical biodiversity, we undertook a series of related inventories of Lepidoptera in New Guinea. Our most extensive data set is an inventory of the caterpillar fauna of low-land rainforests near Madang, Papua New Guinea, from 1994-2001. Our ecological analyses focus on the Lepidoptera com-munity on 71 woody plant species repre-senting 45 genera and 23 families near Ma-dang. Of these species, 69 are native, while 2 species of Piper are not native. But for taxonomic purposes we have evaluated specimens accumulated more broadly, in-cluding the material resulting from a study focused on 10 woody plant species con-ducted near Wau. Papua New Guinea, in 1992 and 1993 (Basset 1996, Basset et al. 1996). This paper represents the first in a series of papers providing taxonomic doc-umentation in support of the broader stud-ies, and is intended to provide general back-ground, including descriptions of the study site, sampling methods, and taxonomic methods. During 2002, we sampled an additional 19 woody plant species near Madang, bringing the total sampling universe to 90 species representing 58 genera and 32 fam-ilies. The sampling effort per plant was re-duced according to the guidelines in No-votny et al. (2002c). The insects from these surveys are still being analyzed. At the time of this writing, the Madang study is being expanded to include montane sites and a se-ries of lowland sites, and material from these studies will be discussed and de-scribed in later papers in this series. Sam-
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