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The "Evolutionary Significant Unit" concept and its…
The "Evolutionary Significant Unit" concept and its applicability in biological conservation (Casacci et al., 2014)-G2
Introduction
The case of Maculinea butterflies
The ESU: some insights from butterfly studies
Conclusions
Host ants' diversification in Maculinea populations
When taxonomic variability does not reflect biological diversity in butterflies
The Maculinea alcon-rebeli debate
Maculinea arion: the genetic approach
The intraspecific taxonomy of the European population of M. arion is confusing
This species is listed in Annex IV of Habitats Directive
This protection of this species provide indirect benefits to many other species
The global status of this species change from 'nearly threatened' to 'endangered' by following IUCN classification
According to Bereczki et al. (2011), the researchers have made a distinction between two eco-types in the Carpathian region
a.
Maculinea arion arion
fly from mid-May to mid-June
prefer short-grass dry meadow
initial food plant is
Thymus
spp.
b.
Maculinea arion ligurica
fly from end of June to mid-August
mostly occurs at xerothermic areas
lay eggs on Origanum flowerheads
These Carpathian populations does not fulfilled the criteria used to define ESUs because
these two species were not separated on the basis of allozyme studies
overlapping in their larval food plants
Therefore, these two species cannot be considered separate ESUs
Recent studies on the genetic structures of 20 M. arion populations from distinct and geographically distant parts of Europe (Italy and Poland) shows that
The Polish populations exploit
Thymus
spp. as larval food plants and occupy xerothermic grasslands
In Italy, three morpho-ecotypes are present
(M. arion ario, M. arion ligurica, M. arion obscura
) and these three species also exploit Thymus spp. as host plant and colonises high-altitude pastures
The result shows that there is genetic differentiation among
M. arion Italion
population for both markers but there is almost no mtDNA polymorphism was found in the Polish samples
Rear Edge Theory explains that low-latitude populations have long-term stores of genetic diversity
There is no differences between Origanum and Thymus-dependent populations
Despite the ecological and morphological variability, the species may have lacked deep population isolation or these events left no observable trace in the analysed genes
Final remarks