PREFACE

PREFACE () After my long experience, my numerous failures, and my one success, I feel sure that if any party of naturalists ever make a yacht-voyage to explore the Malayan Archipelago or any tropical region, making entomology one of their chief pursuits, it would well repay them to carry a small-framed [white-washed] veranda, or a veranda-shaped tent of white canvas, to set up in every favourable situation, as a means of making a collection of nocturnal Lepidoptera ()
ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE (The Malay Achipelago, 1869)

Following Wallaces advice, a wealth of data on the distribution and abundance of moth species has been collected in Southeast-Asia and the Malay Archipelago during the last 135 years. The objective of my research work is to use this information in conjunction with my own field sampling, in order to analyse some ecological properties of moth assemblages in the light of modern theories on biodiversity and community ecology. My aim of analysing species distribution, abundance and the relationship between them made it necessary to also pay attention to patterns of biodiversity and biogeography, which are direct results from these variables, as well as to some methodological issues. Furthermore, additional parameters such as larval host plants and body sizes were treated as they might influence one or the other variable. Each topic is presented as a chapter or sub-chapter with an own introduction, methods description and discussion. It can be read without referring to the other chapters and allows faster editing of each chapters results for publication in scientific journals. An introduction describes the macroscopic perspective (Maurer 1999) on community ecology, the research taxon and region and some general methodological issues. A general discussion and synthesis can be found at the end of this work, and summaries in English, German, Malay and Indonesian (which is the most widely understood language of Southeast-Asia) are given. At the time of submission of this thesis, Chapter 2 is accepted for publication in the Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera 39: Beck & Linsenmair, Feasibility of light-trapping in community research of moths: Attraction radius of light, completeness of samples, nightly flight times and seasonality of Southeast-Asian hawkmoths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae).