52

CHAPTER 3.1 LOCAL SPECIES DIVERSITY

disturbance). This idea can be tested by predictions for the distance-turnover relation for Bornean Sphingidae: Primary forest samples should exhibit a steeper turnover than heavily disturbed sites. As figure 3.8 shows, the opposite is found in data: Species turnover appears steeper for disturbed lowland sites than for lowland primary forests. Other studies on Lepidoptera in Borneo (Geometridae: Beck et al. 2002, Nymphalidae: Schulze, Beck, Brhl et al., unpublished) also failed to find evidence of the homogenization hypothesis, as habitat disturbance had no influence on the magnitude of differences between regions.

Montane habitats are often considered as relatively isolated habitat islands in tropical landscapes (e.g. Bowers 1988) and frequently contain a number endemic species (see e.g. Wong & Phillips 1996 for Mt. Kinabalu). Mountain peaks might thus be expected to exhibit a stronger species turnover than (connected) lowland sites. However, this assumption might or might not be true as (a) Sphingidae are probably easily able to reach mountain peaks within Borneo, and (b) montane regions are quite common in northern and central Borneo. Figure 3.8 tentatively supports the prediction by a trend to high turnover in montane habitats (>1200 metres a.s.l.), but the number of available 100 sample sites is too low for reliable S rec =86 regression fitting. 80
Species 60 40 20 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 S obs =77

Estimating regional species richness from local samples Sphingidae were exhaustively sampled at least in Northern, non-Indonesian Borneo, which is one of the best-covered regions for this taxon in the Indo-Australian tropics. Despite a significant geographic autocorrelation of quantitative samples (see above), -diversity between regions on the island is apparently not very high: Schulze et al. (2000) record two thirds of the known species from Kinabalu Park (as similar proportion was found for butterflies and primates, Huser et al. 1997, Schulze & Beck 1999). Even although this figures might be misleading as (1) Kinabalu Park is an exceptionally divers region due to its unmatched altitudinal range and (2) the park is by far the best-sampled region of the island (see above for references), there is not much indication that Borneos Sphingidae fauna is not (almost) completely known. This gives the unique possibility to compare a large data set of short, intense samples

100 S rec =86 80

Species

60 40 20 0 0 10 20 30 Samples 40

ACE Chao1 Chao2 MMRuns MMMean

50

60

Figure 3.9 shows 100-fold randomised species accumulation curve [SD] (upper figure) and estimators of true species richness (lower figure) from 57 quantitative local samples on Borneo. Randomisations and calculations of richness estimators were executed with EstimateS 5.01 (Colwell 2000). Total known species richness for Borneo was taken from the Checklist in Beck & Kitching (2004), excluding species of the genera Macroglossum, Cephonodes & Sataspes, which are day-active and can only rarely be caught at light.