Advisors: Harald Krenn, Barbara-Amina Gereben-Krenn

Diplomprüfung - Thursday, July 30th 2020

Abstract

In recent years, butterflies have become increasingly important as indicators for biodiversity as well as for environmental and climatic changes. Their sensitivity to changes in their habitats as well as their specific requirements to living habitats mark them as ideal bioindicators. In order to obtain a sufficient amount of data to forecast population trends, it is necessary to carry out extensive monitoring. Many European countries already employ regular, standardised butterfly-counts. An example for such programmes is the “United Kingdom Butterlfly Monitoring Scheme” or the “Tagfalter-Monitoring Deutschland”.

In 2018, 7 promising locations in Vienna, Austria, were chosen as study sites to collect data as part of this diploma thesis. The different locations were selected in order to compare the individual distributions of alpha-diversity as well as to restore a wide spectrum of different habitats – considering their ecological factors, their utilization and their positions in the city area.

From April until September, the transects were inspected 11 times per season. During those inspections, 61 species and 5 species complexes were documented. With a number of 44 species, the area with the highest number of species was at the site Verschiebebahnhof. At the site Lobau 43 species were identified. At the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna – the only area located in the middle of the city, surrounded by many buildings – only 16 butterfly species were identified. In all transects, 21 species were found that are either on the Red List Austria or Red List Vienna for instance Brenthis hecate, Meliteae didyma, Boloria euphrosyne and Satyrium w-album. The founding of the 7 transects as well as the accumulated data provide the basis for longer butterfly monitoring programmes in Vienna.