Describing and comparing high invertebrate diversity in tropical forest — a case study of small moths in Borneo

Abstract

The description and comparison of invertebrate diversity in tropical habitats poses enormous problems. Diversity indices, of which there is a plethora, are often seen as ends in themselves; this has led to much sterile phenomenology which is opaque to most naturalists. We mimic field samples by bootstrap sampling from computer-generated populations based on logarithmic series. This provides a simple way of comparing samples in terms of their shared species, defining confidence limits and describing diversity in easily understood terms. Field samples of Microlepidoptera from sites in Borneo, including two sites 1 km apart in the Batu Apoi Forest Reserve, are used to demonstrate how simple questions such as “Are the moth faunas of these habitats the same?”, “How diverse are they?” or “How different are they?” may be answered. Extrapolations from these field samples to minimum estimates of the total number of species of a habitat or territory are attempted, and some of the problems and limitations encountered in sampling are examined.