author(s)
Fasuil Farooq and Manoj Kumar Arya

abstract
The present study investigated the species richness, abundance and distribution of butterflies in the temperate fruit tree orchards of district-Nainital, Kumaun Himalaya, Uttarakhand, India and were carried out in three temperate fruit tree orchards from July 2016 to June 2017, located at Satbunga, Khabrar and orchards of Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture (CITH), Mukteshwar. A total of 1247 individuals of butterflies representing 33 species and 4 families were recorded during the course of study. Nymphalidae was the most dominant family and supported 17 species followed by Pieridae (9 species), Papilionidae (5 species) and Lycaenidae (2 species), respectively. Among the total species, Catopsilia pomona Fabricius was the most abundant species and constituted 13.71% of the total individuals followed by Eurema hecabe Linnaeus, Pieris canidia Sparrman and Aglais cashmerensis Kollar, respectively. Contrarily, Graphium eurous Leech was the least abundant species constituted 0.32% of the total individuals followed by Neptis zaida Doubleday and Papilio machaon Linnaeus. Shannon diversity index (H) was highest in the orchard of Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture- Mukteshwar (3.171) followed by Khabrar (3.001) and Satbunga (2.776). Evenness was highest in Satbunga (0.84) followed by Khabrar (0.80) and CITH (0.79). Similarly, Margalef’s index was highest in CITH (4.547) followed by Khabrar (4.004) and Satbunga (3.244) respectively. Based on the number of sightings, 14 species were characterized as fairly common (FC) and accounted 42.42% of the total species, 15 species (45.45%) were characterized as common (C) and 4 species (12.12%) were uncommon (UC). During the present study, site having greater fruit trees (varieties) supported maximum species composition, richness and abundance of butterflies.