The role of winter weather in the population dynamics of spring moths in the southwest Korean peninsula

Moth monitoring in a coniferous forest in southwestern Korea was carried out for 3 years in order to investigate the effects of winter weather factors on moth survival and emergence in early spring. A total of 686 individuals in 51 species of 4 families were collected during 3 spring sampling periods. The species richness observed for all 3 years was similar, though their abundance was differed. A total of 15 weather variables were analyzed including temperature and precipitation during the 4 months preceding April, and cumulative sums of 5-degree days with base temperatures ranging from 6 to 10 degrees C. Due to the multicollinearity of dependent variables, we adopted the eigenvectors of major axes from principal component analysis for multiple stepwise regression analysis. The species richness and abundance were significantly related to the first and second axes. Both axes were positively related with precipitation and temperature during the preceding 2 months, as well as the average winter temperature. This indicated that the effects of temperature and precipitation during winter played an important role in moth emergence in early spring, though the weather conditions of each month during winter varied significantly compared to the pattern of adult emergence. (C) Korean Society of Applied Entomology, Taiwan Entomological Society and Malaysian Plant Protection Society, 2012. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.