Biodiversity and seasonality of Pyraloidea (Lepidoptera) in the woody savannah belt in Mali

Seventy-nine species of Pyraloidea moths were collected from light traps in the vicinity of Bamako in Mali during 2014. Thirty-one species—for which over 10 specimens each had been trapped—were chosen for analysis of their seasonal dynamics. According to the similarity in their patterns of seasonal flight, three clusters were recognized by non-metric MDS ordination: (1) The beginning of the rain season was associated with a peak in several multivoltine, widespread, and highly abundant species, thus reducing to a minimum both the effective number of species index and index of evenness. In the middle of the rain season, the number of both species and specimens was low, probably reflecting the period of larval development for most of the species; (2) The first half of the wet–dry (transitional) season featured the highest diversity and highest evenness in the representation of species. More than half of 31 species are univoltine in the study region, and thus were found only during this period. All the species are Afrotropical or Paleotropical in their general distribution; (3) A group of 10 species peaked during the dry season. Five of these also occurred earlier, while the other five were specific to the dry season: A. simplella, B. asialis, P. phoenicealis, A. calligrammalis, and P. pictalis.