Small-Scale Dynamics of Moths in Spring from a Coniferous Forest of Southwestern Korea

The small-scale dynamic of moth populations in spring was examined in a coniferous forest ofsouthwestern Korea. Moths were collected with one 22-watt light trap for 29 days in April 2007. A total of 450individuals of 38 species in 5 families were collected. The most abundant species was an epiplemid moth,Epiplema plagifera. The relationship between these dominant moths and their host plants is briefly discussed.We also examined influence of weather factors on the number of species and individuals collected. Multipleregression analyses showed that the two-day temperature difference explained 18% of the variance in thenumber of species collected, while air and ground temperatures explained 51% of the variance in thelog-transformed number of individuals collected. This suggests that temperature affects local population sizes inspring, but variables other than weather may also affect the diversity of local moth populations.