Butterfly Fauna of Central Panama During an El Niño Period: Preliminary Insights on Diversity Patterns

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Abstract
Panama’s rich butterfly diversity, owing to its position as a biological bridge between North America and South America, remains insufficiently documented. To contribute faunistic data from this region, we conducted a noninvasive modified Pollard walk survey of adult butterflies over 20 days, between May 20 and June 14, 2023, focusing on central Panama: Panama City (high urbanization, low elevation), Cerro Azul (moderate urbanization, high elevation), and Gamboa (low urbanization, low elevation). A total of 310 taxa representing 308 species were identified from all papilionoid families except Hedylidae, comprising 1803 individuals. The relatively low abundance observed during the study period may be attributed to the El Niño conditions that coincided with the surveys. Panama City yielded 137 taxa and 474 individuals (8 days), Cerro Azul yielded 58 taxa and 221 individuals (4 days), and Gamboa yielded 220 taxa and 1108 individuals (8 days). Rarefaction and extrapolation analyses, which account for uneven sampling efforts, revealed that Gamboa exhibited the highest butterfly diversity across all diversity orders, including species richness ( q = 0), Shannon diversity ( q = 1), and Simpson’s diversity ( q = 2), followed by Panama City and Cerro Azul. These results emphasize that species diversity tends to be greater at lower elevations and in less urbanized areas. This study provides valuable insights into the butterfly fauna of central Panama, contributing to understanding biodiversity and highlighting the need for long‐term research to enable comprehensive analysis and conservation efforts in this understudied ecoregion.

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