Geography of Indian Butterflies: Patterns Revealed by Checklists of Federal States

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The Republic of India is a tropical megadiverse country, encompassing four global biodiversity hot-spots and harboring 1379 butterfly species within its borders. Despite a long history of documenting Indian biodiversity, there are extremely few quantitative studies that have analyzed species-richness patterns within the country. We capitalized on the division of the country into 36 federal states and territories, and compiled and revised per-states butterfly checklists. Then, we analyzed the species-richness patterns, as well as the richness of endemic species and the numbers of species belonging to main biogeographic elements with respect to geography, climate, land covers and socioeconomic conditions of the administrative units. Such common macroecological predictors as area, latitude and land covers diversity did not affect the species richness, whereas the topographic diversity and energy availability had major effects. This is due to the peculiar biogeography of India, i.e., the peninsula narrowing towards the Equator, being isolated from the northern mainland by high mountains, and connected to species-rich eastern regions by only a narrow conduit. In multiple regression models, geographic variables were the strongest predictors of species-richness patterns, followed by climate and land covers. Our approach can be used as an initial step toward understanding distribution patterns in those regions of the world, for which detailed distribution data are not yet available but checklists per administrative units exist. ABSTRACT: Butterflies are widely used to analyze biogeographical patterns, both at the global and regional scales. Thus far, most of the latter originated from well-surveyed northern regions, while the species-rich tropical areas lag due to a lack of appropriate data. We used checklists of 1379 butterfly species recorded in 36 federal states of the Republic of India (1) to explore the basic macroecological rules, and (2) to relate species richness and the distribution of endemics and geographic elements to geography, climate, land covers and socioeconomic conditions of the states. The area, land covers diversity and latitude did not affect species richness, whereas topographic diversity and the precipitation/temperature ratio (energy availability) were positive predictors. This is due the geographic and climatic idiosyncrasies of the Indian subcontinent, with its highest species richness in the small, densely forested mountainous northeast that receives summer monsoons. The peninsular effect that decreases the richness towards the tip of subcontinent is counterbalanced by the mountainous forested Western Ghats. Afrotropical elements are associated with savannahs, while Palearctic elements are associated with treeless habitats. The bulk of Indian butterfly richness, and the highest conservation priorities, overlap with global biodiversity hotspots, but the mountainous states of the Western Himalayas and the savannah states of peninsular India host distinctive faunas.