Fruit-Feeding Butterfly Assemblages: Trends, Changes, and the Importance of Monitoring Schemes in Neotropical Environments

The application of effective conservation strategies depends on the knowledge on how diversity is distributed in space and time, beyond to consider it also in terms of public policies and to democratize this information. Therefore, one of the main roles of tropical conservation is to understand biological distributions and declines by monitoring, estimating, and predicting environmental changes, actions that are the first step to protect the synergetic biological, environmental, and social diversities. Despite the knowledge and investment gaps found in the Neotropics, one of the most biodiverse areas in the world, a significant amount of studies has contributed to the understanding of how fruit-feeding butterfly communities are distributed, and how changes in the environment alter their structure. The fruit-feeding butterflies are long considered a good indicator group, due to the great knowledge about its biology, and its ecological characteristics. This chapter will focus on the results and patterns obtained within in situ surveys from mostly several spatial but also temporal studies with neotropical fruit-feeding butterfly communities, enhancing its use and importance in biodiversity conservation programs.