Flying between raindrops: strong seasonal turnover of several Lepidoptera groups in lowland rainforests of Mount Cameroon

1. Although seasonality in the tropics is often less pronounced than in temperate areas, tropical ecosystems show seasonal dynamics as well. Nevertheless, individual tropical insects’ phenological patterns are still poorly understood, especially in the Afrotropics. To fill this gap, we investigated biodiversity patterns of Lepidoptera communities at three rainforest localities in the foothills of Mount Cameroon, West Africa, one of the wettest places in the world. 2. Our multi-taxa approach covered six lepidopteran groups (fruit-feeding butterflies and moths, the families Sphingidae, Saturniidae, and Eupterotidae, and the subfamily Arctiinae of Erebidae) with diverse life strategies. We sampled adults of the focal groups in three distinct seasons. Our sampling included standardised bait-trapping (80 traps exposed for ten days per locality and season) and attraction by light (six full nights per locality and season). 3. Altogether, our dataset comprised 20,576 specimens belonging to 559 ...