Costa Rica is a small country in Central America with a land area of 51.100 km 2 (0.03% of the plant’s surface) and contains a tremendous diversity of ecosystems, as well as plants, insects and animals. With over 500,000 species, Costa Rica can be considered “one of the 20 countries with greatest biodiversity in the world (INbio 2005).” The country provides numerous and varied microclimates that encompass from sea level to over 3,800 m in elevation (Chai 1990). Costa Rica has a range of forest types and was at some point almost entirely covered with forest (Kleinn et al. 2002). However, for centuries rainforests have been damaged by human influence and patches of valuable rainforest were cut. Deforestation rates are still high and forest land is continuously being turned into pastures or fields for agricultural use (Van Laake and Sanchez-Azofeifa 2002). Vital habitat is therefore fragmented or even lost and the forest edges, also known as transition zones, typically experience a change of environment and therefore threaten species. Long term ecological monitoring in these habitats has the potential to provide information on changes in the biota. In the neotropics studies have shown that it is almost always the butterfly that suffers the most when rainforests are destroyed, hence natural habitats are lost and local temperatures rise. Butterfly communities in Costa Rica are diverse with many endemic species. They belong to the order Lepidoptera and in Costa Rica; there are an estimated 13,500 species of Lepidoptera (H. Sparrow, 1994).

Butterflies are widely recognized as potentially valuable ecological indicators and the role of adult butterflies as pollinators for plants (Hill 1995), tie butterflies closely to the diversity and health of their habitats. Forest disturbance in Costa Rica may therefore represent a particular threat to butterfly diversity. By monitoring the butterflies it might allow for a better understanding of the ecological trends of the biota which could later be used to make informed management decisions in the area. The purpose of this study is to recognize and compare butterfly sightings in each of the two determined landscapes; undisturbed secondary forest and disturbed forest edge.

 

	Map of Costa Rica ( University of Washington,Tacoma,2005)