LINEAR STRIPS OF RAIN-FOREST VEGETATION AS POTENTIAL DISPERSAL CORRIDORS FOR RAIN-FOREST INSECTS

The potential of linear strips of vegetation to net as corridors to fa cilitate dispersal is examined for three taxa of insects in lowland ra in forest in northeastern Australia. The taxa selected were ants, butt erflies and dung beetles, all of which are taxonomically well known an d could be considered bioindicator groups. The sampling design encompa ssed four habitats, namely rain-forest interior; rain-forest edge, rai n-forest linear strip (corridor), and arable land. Ants and dung beetl es were sampled using baited pitfall traps, and visual surveys were us ed to census butterflies. Potential increase in dispersal was examined by first identifying those species that specialized on the rain-fores t interior habitat and then determining whether these species were pre sent in the linear strips as opposed to the surrounding arable land. T wo species of butterfly and two species of dung beetle were identified as milt-forest interior specialists, and two of these species were fo und in the linear strips but not in the arable habitat. This result su pports the concept that the presence of corridors can increase the pot ential for dispersal of these species. But the remaining rain-forest i nterior species did not occur in the linear strips, which suggests tha t corridors will not increase dispersal for these species.