The butterfly community assemblage of Mowire Quarry Site in the forest
agroecological zone of Ghana: Response of indicator biodiversity to
ongoing quarry operations.
Abstract
Quarry operations cause serious environmental impact on invertebrate
communities and contribute negatively to habitat destruction and the
species they promote but very little is still known about the response
of butterflies to such disturbances in western Africa. The current study
provides data from a baseline survey of butterflies at Mowire quarry
site in the agroecological zone of Ghana and investigates the effects of
ongoing quarry operations on butterfly diversity. Specifically quarry
operations were assessed on species abundance and richness. A total of
417 individual butterflies belonging to 67 species from 5 families was
recorded in three zones. High relative abundance in the Eastern Zone
(EZ) (N = 329) and high species richness (S = 55) may be due to
increased flowering plants diversity which contain sweet nectar which
attracts and support rich butterfly abundance. Low species richness (S =
22) and relative abundance (N= 41) in the Western Zone (WZ), and
Northern Zone (NZ) (S = 21) and low relative abundance (N= 47), was
corroborated with low plant diversity. Our results shows that, the EZ
received less negative impact from the quarry operations but the
operations negatively affected WZ and NZ. More generally our study
indicates that state institutions should ensure mandatory environmental
impact assessment reports from the quarry companies.