Beyond butterflies: integrating frugivorous moths into conservation and biodiversity monitoring

Studies using terrestrial fauna surveys and monitoring strategies have been increasingly used in conservation programs. The order Lepidoptera stands out in biomonitoring, especially focused on frugivorous butterflies. When traps for frugivorous butterflies are set, they also collect a great diversity of moths, which end up being discarded from sampling due to identification difficulties and lack of specialists in the Neotropical region. Frugivorous moths belong mainly to the Noctuoidea superfamily, but to date, no study has collected records on species that occur in Brazil, their distribution, and possible benefits of including them in monitoring plans involving frugivorous butterflies. Thus, this study highlights the importance of the inclusion of frugivorous moths in conservation studies and action plans, based on a comprehensive checklist of valid species that occur in Brazil as a basic tool for conservation. From a literature review, we addressing species of frugivorous moths (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea) to create the list of valid species that share this feeding habit. Additionally, we reviewed the different behaviors associated with frugivory and discussed how the inclusion of moths could enrich the fauna conservation and monitoring programs. In total, 136 species and four subspecies, distributed in 30 genera and belonging to the families Erebidae and Noctuidae were related from the literature. Although these data are based on previously conducted studies, they suggest that there are many gaps in our knowledge of the moths’ diversity and potential threats to this group of Lepidoptera.

Our study demonstrates that the inclusion of frugivorous moths in monitoring and conservations programs could also improve biological and ecological information on the studies that actually are using frugivorous butterflies only, especially in critical regions for conservation areas such as the Amazon Rainforest and Atlantic Forest in Brazil. Applied studies are still needed to investigate frugivorous moths and how their community assemblages are structured, particularly in the Neotropical region. The inclusion of frugivorous moths in monitoring can improve knowledge of moth diversity, potential endemic and indicator species and the detection of environmental changes caused by human activities and climate change. In this way, conservation actions can be proposed, with the participation of scientists, local communities, citizen scientists and authorities, for different priority areas, based on the identification of threats to the diversity not only for frugivorous moth species but for other different biotic components of the ecosystems in which these species occur.