Different demography and habitat use in sympatric populations of Maculinea teleius and Maculinea nausithous
Abstract
Maculinea butterflies are among the most threatened and intensively studied insects in Europe. We investigated habitat use and demography in sympatric populations of Maculinea teleius and M. nausithous for three years (2012–2014) in a wet meadow at Hidegség. The two species have similar ecological requirements, but their within-site microdistribution is often different, which is supposedly due to the different microhabitat preferences and distribution of their putative host ants. We aimed to test this hypothesis and to reveal demographic characteristics of the populations. Positive correlation was found between the number of M. nausithous butterflies and the frequency of its putative primary host Myrmica rubra. Frequency of potential host ants had a positive effect on M. teleius at only high host plant density. Demographic parameters showed some differences between species, but also between years and sexes. Population size of M. teleius was ~four times higher than that of M. nausithous and size of both populations fluctuated between years.
References
Ábrahám, L. (2012): Nappali lepke atlasz, Őrség–Goričko. – Őrségi Nemzeti Park Igazgatóság, Őriszentpéter.
Als, T. D., Vila, R., Kandul, N. P., Nash, D. R., Yen, S. H., Hsu, Y. F., Mignault, A. A., Boomsma, J. J. & Pierce, N. E. (2004): The evolution of alternative parasitic life histories in large blue butterflies. – Nature 432: 386–390.
Ambrus, A. (2012): Rovarvilág – Lepkék. Fertő-Hanság Nemzeti Park Igazgatóság, Sarród, pp. 4–8.
Ambrus, A. & Csepregi-Rimóczi, Á. (2012): Jelölés-visszafogásos vizsgálatok lepkepopulációkon (Hidegség, Maculinea teleius és Maculinea nausithous kevert népesség). – Szélkiáltó 15: 60–62.
Anton, C., Musche, M., Hula, V. & Settele, J. (2008): Myrmica host-ants limit the density of the antpredatory large blue Maculinea nausithous. – J. Insect Conserv. 12: 511–517.
Barton, K. (2014): MuMIn: Multi-model inference. R package version 1.10.5. http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=MuMIn.
Batáry, P., Kőrösi, Á., Örvössy, N., Kövér, Sz. & Peregovits, L. (2009): Species-specific distribution of two sympatric Maculinea butterflies across different meadow edges. – J. Insect Conserv. 13: 223–230.
Batáry, P., Örvössy, N., Kőrösi, Á., Vályi-Nagy, M. & Peregovits, L. (2007): Microhabitat preferences of Maculinea teleius (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) in a mosaic landscape. – Eur. J. Entomol. 104: 731–736.
Csősz, S. (1999): A Myrmica genus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) hazai és várható fajainak határozója. – MSc dissertation. University of Debrecen, Hungary.
Dauber, J. & Wolters, V. (2004): Edge effects on ant community structure and species richness in an agricultural landscape. – Biodiv. Conserv. 13: 901–915.
Dierks, A. & Fischer, K. (2009): Habitat requirements and niche selection of Maculinea nausithous and M. teleius (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) within a large sympatric metapopulation. – Biodiv. Conserv. 18: 3663–3676.
Elmes, G. W., Thomas, J. A., Wardlaw, J. C., Hochberg, M. E., Clarke, R. T. & Simcox D. J. (1998): The ecology of Myrmica ants in relation to the conservation of Maculinea butterflies. – J. Insect Conserv. 2: 67–78.
Hochberg, M.E., Thomas, J.A. & Elmes, G.W. (1992): A modelling study of the population dynamics of a large blue butterfly, Maculinea rebeli, a parasite of red ant nests. – J. Anim. Ecol. 61: 397–409.
Kőrösi, Á., Örvössy, N., Batáry P., Harnos, A. & Peregovits L. (2012): Different habitat selection by two sympatric Maculinea butterflies at small spatial scale. – Insect Conserv. Divers. 5: 118–126.
Kőrösi, Á., Szentirmai, I., Batáry, P., Kövér, S., Örvössy, N. & Peregovits, L. (2014): Effects of timing and frequency of mowing on the threatened scarce large blue butterfly – A fine-scale experiment. – Agr. Ecosys. Env. 196: 24–33.
Nowicki, P., Bonelli, S., Barbero, F. & Balletto, E. (2009): Relative importance of density-dependent regulation and environmental stochasticity for butterfly population dynamics. – Oecologia 161: 227–239.
R Core Team (2014): R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org
Settele, J., Kühn, E. & Thomas, J. A. (2005): Studies on the ecology and conservation of butterflies in Europe. Vol. 2: Species ecology along a European gradient: Maculinea butterflies as a model. – Pensoft, Sofia.
Skórka, P., Settele, J. & Woyciechowski, M. (2007): Effects of management cessation on grassland butterflies in southern Poland. – Agr. Ecosys. Env. 121: 319–324.
Spitzer, L., Benes, J., Dandova, J., Jaskova, V. & Konvicka, M. (2009): The large blue butterfly, Phengaris [Maculinea] arion, as a conservation umbrella on a landscape scale: the case of the Czech Carpathians. – Ecol. Indicators 9: 1056–1063.
Tartally, A. (2009): A Maculinea boglárkalepkék Kárpát-medencéből ismert hangyagazdái, parazitoidjai és a hangyagazdák egyéb szociálparazitái. – Term. Közlem. 15: 23–34.
Thomas, J. A. (1980): Why did the large blue become extinct in Britain? – Oryx 15(3): 243–247.
Thomas, J. A. (1984): The behaviour and habitat requirements of Maculinea nausithous (the Dusky Large Blue butterfly) and Maculinea teleius (the Scarce Large Blue) in France. – Biol. Conserv. 28: 325–347.
Van Swaay, C. A. M., Collins, S., Dušej, G., Maes, D., Munguira, M. L., Rákosy, L., Ryrholm, N., Šašić, M., Settele, J., Thomas, J. A., Verovnik, R., Verstrael, T., Warren, M.,Wiemers, M. & Wynhoff, I. (2012): Dos and don’ts for butterflies of the Habitats Directive of the European Union. – Nat. Conserv. 1: 73–153.
White, G. C. & Burnham, K. P. (1999): Program MARK: survival estimation from populations of marked animals. – Bird Study 46(S1): S120–S139.
Witek, M., Sliwinska, E. B., Skorka, P., Nowicki, P., Wantuch, M., Vrabec, V., Settele, J. & Woyciechowski, M. (2008) Host ant specificity of large blue butterflies Phengaris (Maculinea) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) inhabiting humid grasslands in East-central Europe. – Eur. J. Entomol. 105: 871–877.
Wynhoff, I. (1998) Lessons from the reintroduction of Maculinea teleius and M. nausithous in the Netherlands. – J. Insect Conserv. 2: 47–57.
