Host ant specificity of large blue butterflies Phengaris (Maculinea) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) inhabiting humid grasslands in East-central Europe

Abstract

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:

Not only the butterflies: managing ants on road verges to benefit Phengaris (Maculinea) butterflies

“…In Poland, Woyciechowski and Miszta (1976) and Petal (1974Petal ( , 1980 found 4-14 ant species on the moist meadows where the source populations of the reintroduced butterflies occur. On such meadows, M. scabrinodis usually dominates the ant community (Grill et al 2008;Witek et al 2008), which agrees with our findings. On road verges, however, L. niger is by far the commonest species.…”

Invasive goldenrods affect abundance and diversity of grassland ant communities (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

“…Further studies are required to resolve the detailed mechanism of the negative effect of goldenrod on particular species. All observed Myrmica species are host ants of Phengaris butterflies (Witek et al 2008). In the context of previous studies showing significant correlations between local extinctions of hosts and parasites (Koh et al 2004), Fig.…”

“…2 The average (±SD) number of species (a); number of nests (b) and ratio of the number of L. niger nests in the total nest number of Myrmica and Lasius species (c) in control (white bars) and goldenrod (gray bars) squares goldenrods may also have a negative effect on these flagship species. In the context of extreme local specificity of P. alcon for M. scabrinodis ants (Sielezniew and Stankiewicz 2002) as well as the high specificity of P. nausithous for M. rubra, goldenrod invasion potentially threatens these two butterfly species to a higher degree than the more flexible P. teleius which does not show local specialization to host ants Witek et al 2008). …”

Development of parasitic Maculinea teleius (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae) larvae in laboratory nests of four Myrmica ant host species

“…Numerous studies have been carried out on host ant specificity between Maculinea butterflies and their Myrmica host ants in recent years. Most of them are based on recorded frequency distribution of Maculinea pupae in relation to the host ant species they were found with (Elmes et al, 1994Stankiewicz and Sielezniew, 2002;Als et al, 2004;Tartally and Cs} osz, 2004;Woyciechowski et al, 2006;Tartally and Varga, 2008;Witek et al, 2008, Patricelli et al, 2010. A more mechanistic understanding of host specificity in Maculinea-Myrmica association has been achieved by studying chemical and acoustic mimicry Barbero et al, 2009) and through the investigation of ant adoption and rearing behaviour (Als et al, 2001;Elmes et al, 2004;Stankiewicz, 2007, Nash et al, 2011).…”

“…The first detailed studies on the host specificity of M. teleius showed that M. scabrinodis (Nylander, 1864) was its main host species (Thomas et al, 1989) while recent studies that recorded the frequency distribution of M. teleius pupae across the host ant species have shown that its larvae can successfully develop and survive inside nests of other Myrmica species from the same site (Stankiewicz and Sielezniew, 2002;Tartally and Varga, 2008;Witek et al, 2008).…”