Vertical stratification, climatic seasonality and human disturbances drive the diurnal butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) diversity in the Peruvian Amazon

Different variables produce changes in the local diversity. They interact complexly to determine the community structure and have a variable effect. In diurnal butterflies, the effect of some variables is confusing due to the contrasting results found, appearing as if there are interactions between them. Most previous works studied, the effect of vertical stratification, climatic seasonality, and human disturbances separately without considering their interaction. In the present work, we evaluated the interaction of these variables using a Box-Cox transformation and Type III ANOVA, and their isolated effect using a Kruskal Wallis test with Dunn Post hoc test. We collected 7655 day-traps from 18 collection points at Manu Learning Centre Biological Station, a forest with a human disturbance gradient, from October 2011 to August 2023 in three different strata (high, medium, and low). We found 378 species from 159 genera. The Type III ANOVA revealed that vertical stratification interacts with the other two variables. In general, the effect of the stratification is negative, being lower in the high stratum. The impact of human disturbance was also negative, being higher in the most preserved forest. Finally, the intermediate climatic season had a greater diversity than the rainy and dry seasons. We concluded that the interaction of the vertical stratification with other variables explained the contrasted result found, the canopy is the last stratum to recover from a disturbance, the species of the high stratum can withstand seasonal variation, and the intermediate season exhibits higher diversity in non-seasonal Amazonian Forest.