Between-site similarity in species composition of a number of Panamanian insect groups

Abstract

The between-site faunal similarity has been studied in 12 groups of tropical insects, collected by light-traps, at seven sites in the Republic of Panama and was compared with some data sets from the literature, both from the temperate zone and from the tropics. There were large between-site differences in faunal composition, especially in relation with altitude. All insect groups were very similar in their between-site differences, suggesting that studying large segments of the fauna may be unnecessary for comparing sites and that the study of one or a few insect groups may suffice. The differences among tropical Panamanian sites tend to be larger than those in the temperate zone for most insect groups. However, great caution is required when comparing tropical and temperate inter-site site similarities as data from the literature show that this may not be a universal trend.