Theselectionofsuitableecologicalindicatorgroupsisofgreatimportanceforenvironmentalassessments. Totestandcomparetwosuchgroups,weperformedtransectwalksofbutterfliesandlighttrapsofmoths ateightsamplelocalitiesintheCarinthianAlps.Allofthemwereconductedwithidenticalmethodsinthe years 2002 and 2004 allowing the evaluation of the response on the conservation measures performed on five of the eight sites in late 2002. We recorded a total of 2346 butterflies (including Zygaenidae and Sesiidae) representing 83 species and 7025 moths of 534 species. 150 of these species were listed in the RedDataBookofCarinthia.Ingeneral,butterfliesincreasedfrom2002to2004whilemothsdeclined.The highestincreaseratesofbutterflieswereobtainedforthenumbersofindividualsofcalcareousgrassland specialists at the conservation sites, while their numbers were unchanged at the control sites. Similar trend differences between conservation and control sites were obtained for the Red Data Book butterfly species. On the contrary, the development of moth individuals was more positive at the control than the conservation sites for calcareous grassland specialists (only macro-moths) and species of the Red Data Book. However, change rates of species numbers were positively correlated between butterflies and moths. Principal Component Analysis revealed strong differences between the different sites, but mostly consistent results for butterflies and moths; however, stronger differences between years were only detected for some of the conservation sites for the butterfly communities. Our results show that butterfliesaswellasmothsaresuitableecologicalindicatorgroups,buttheydonotyieldidenticalresults. Thus,butterfliesaremoresuitablefortheanalysisofopenhabitats,whereasmothsaresuitableforopen and forested habitats as well. Furthermore, butterflies might be a more sensitive indicator group than moths for the short-term detection of conservation measures, especially for the restoration of open habitat types.