Abstract. Butterflies of the genus Phengaris have a highly specialised life cycle involving an obligatory relationship with Myrmica ants. A knowledge of the host ant specificity is essential for understanding the relationship between a particular Phengaris species and its hosts and also important for the conservation of these butterflies. Data on host ant specificity were collected in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine. Five different Myrmica species were used by P. teleius as hosts (M. scabrinodis, M. rubra, M. ruginodis, M. rugulosa and M. gallienii) and at most localities it was not possible to distinguish a primary host -i.e. several Myrmica species were parasitized to similar extents. Three populations of P. nausithous were found in Poland and Ukraine. In every case, M. rubra was its primary host, although in the Kraków region (Poland) two nests of M. scabrinodis and two of M. ruginodis were infested by this butterfly species. P. alcon in the four populations investigated in Poland and Ukraine invariably only used M. scabrinodis as a host despite the presence of other Myrmica species. These results obtained suggest lack of host specificity in P. teleius and high host specificity in P. nausithous, which mainly uses M. rubra as its host across Europe. Moreover, the three populations of P. alcon investigated seem to be highly specific and use M. scabrinodis as a host, which confirms the high local specialisation of these populations. 871* Present and corresponding address:
The presence of annual and biennial individuals within the same population has been recently demonstrated in the myrmecophilous butterflies Maculinea rebeli and Maculinea alcon, which present a cuckoo strategy inside Myrmica nests, and Maculinea arion which is a predatory species. Here, we present field and laboratory data on polymorphic larval growth in two other predatory species of Maculinea: M. teleius and M. nausithous. Body mass distributions of pre-pupation larvae were bimodal in both species. These results point to the existence of larvae that develop in 1 or 2 years. We also showed that the probability of pupation depended on larval body mass. In the case of M. teleius, the critical body mass at which larvae have a 50% probability of pupation is about 80 mg. We suggest that polymorphism in Maculinea may have evolved as an adaptation to life in ant nests, a habitat which protects them from predators and provides food. However, the quality of this resource is highly variable and unpredictable. According to the bet-hedging hypothesis, if the habitat is unpredictable, females should have an advantage by producing more variable offspring. In the case of Maculinea butterflies, this may involve maintaining larvae that develop in 1 or 2 years.
Understanding individual movements in heterogeneous environments is central to predicting how landscape changes affect animal populations. An important but poorly understood phenomenon is behavioural response to habitat boundaries and the way animals cross inhospitable matrix surrounding habitat patches. Here, we analyze movement decisions, flight behaviour, and activity of the endangered scarce large blue Phengaris (Maculinea) teleius, focusing on the differences among the patterns observed in patch interior, at patch boundaries and within matrix. The probability of crossing an external patch boundary, regardless of the land use in the adjacent area, was considerably lower than crossing a 'control line' within patch interior. Movement distances, flight durations and net squared displacement were largest in matrix, while similarly smaller at patch boundaries and in patch interior. The distribution of angles between successive movements was clearly clustered around 0°(indicating flight in a straight line) in matrix and at patch boundaries, but not in patch interior. There were no differences in time spent on foraging, resting and ovipositing between patch interior and boundaries, but the first two activities rarely, and oviposition never, happened in matrix. Our results suggest that although P. teleius adults do not avoid using the resources located in the boundaries of habitat patches, they often return to the interior of the patches when crossing their boundaries. However, having entered the matrix the butterflies perform relatively long and straight flights. The estimated probability of emigration and net squared distance implies that the dispersal between local populations is common in this species in the studied area.
BackgroundMajor histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins constitute an essential component of the vertebrate immune response, and are coded by the most polymorphic of the vertebrate genes. Here, we investigated sequence variation and evolution of MHC class I and class II DRB, DQA and DQB genes in the brown bear Ursus arctos to characterise the level of polymorphism, estimate the strength of positive selection acting on them, and assess the extent of gene orthology and trans-species polymorphism in Ursidae.ResultsWe found 37 MHC class I, 16 MHC class II DRB, four DQB and two DQA alleles. We confirmed the expression of several loci: three MHC class I, two DRB, two DQB and one DQA. MHC class I also contained two clusters of non-expressed sequences. MHC class I and DRB allele frequencies differed between northern and southern populations of the Scandinavian brown bear. The rate of nonsynonymous substitutions (dN) exceeded the rate of synonymous substitutions (dS) at putative antigen binding sites of DRB and DQB loci and, marginally significantly, at MHC class I loci. Models of codon evolution supported positive selection at DRB and MHC class I loci. Both MHC class I and MHC class II sequences showed orthology to gene clusters found in the giant panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca.ConclusionsHistorical positive selection has acted on MHC class I, class II DRB and DQB, but not on the DQA locus. The signal of historical positive selection on the DRB locus was particularly strong, which may be a general feature of caniforms. The presence of MHC class I pseudogenes may indicate faster gene turnover in this class through the birth-and-death process. South–north population structure at MHC loci probably reflects origin of the populations from separate glacial refugia.
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