Chalkhill blue

Subspecies

Sibling species

Upon using allozyme analyses when looking at the species P. hispana and P. slovacus showed a difference in evolutionary history with P. coridon. The analysis showed that P. hispana has a large genetic distance between the two species and that there was allopartic speciation from P. coridon. P. slovacus seems to show that there was sympatry with P. coridon but the genetic analysis could not prove this hypothesis, so the researchers made the conclusion that this particular species was a local population that has an atavism of bivoltinism.

Post-Glacial Expansion

The expansion of the species travels from western Europe into eastern Europe from the ice-age refugium into the Balkans. The starting point for the expansion is in Western Hungry traveling into the Balkans and then into Brandenburg and Poland. This expansion shows that are two routes due to the changes in gene allele frequencies and the degree of homogeneity of the species.

The two routes are:

1.) Starting in the western tip of Hungary traveling into North eastern Hungry along the Hungarian Mountains into eastern Slovakia

2.) Starts in western Hungary and travels along the eastern Alps into western Slovakia and Czech Republic

The expansion caused there to be two unique genetic populations that were separated by mountain ranges. And the expansion also caused the movement of species that were only found in warmer areas to move into new habitats that were previously cooler in temperature and did not have the biotic components to support these new species.

Description

This species' physical appearance can be described as males having pale silvery-blue wings with black-and-white border (see adjacent images). Females are dark brown, also with the black-and-white borders. As with many blue butterflies, separation from similar species in the field is on the underside markings.

Geographical Range

The range of P. coridon occurs throughout Central Europe, and is endemic to Europe. There are a few exceptions to where it is located in Central Europe, it is not found in the countries of Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, the Iberian Peninsula (exception of it being found in the northern provinces of Iberian), the Mediterranean islands (found in Corsica and Sardinia), and most of southern Italy.

Habitat

This is particular species of butterfly is have a preference for dry calcareous grasslands. This species also has a preference towards grasslands that have short grass with many flowering plant. P. coridon is a sedentary organism which means that they do not travel very far within their habitat range. These individuals have the tendency to stay within their habitat patch rather than do long migrations to find new habitats.

Feeding

P. coridon is monophagous, which means that they only feeds on one specific species of plant. The eggs are laid on leaves of Horseshoe Vetch (Hippocrepis comosa) and the larvae feed upon those plants.

Breeding type

This species only produces one generation per year making them a univoltine, which means that this species only breeds once per year and will only produce one set of offspring.

Offspring

The larvae or caterpillars of this species feed on the leaves of horseshoe vetch (Hippocrepis comosa) . When they are ready to pupate they pupate on the ground within the leaf litter of the host plants. The caterpillars are attend by several different ants of the genera Myrmica, Lasius, Formica, Plagiolepis, Tetramorium, Aphaenogaster and Tapinoma.

Parasitoid

In the research that was locating at the affects of trophic interaction and fragmentation it was found that there are no known parasitoids that are specialized to this species, but there are other parasitoids that are related to other species that are part of the Family Lycaenidae which will sometimes predate upon this species. It could be a viable option that the parasitoids that did predate upon this species became extinct due to the fragmentation of their habitat in the past.

Habitat Fragmentation

This would be physical features of the environment that separate populations of the same species. One type of would be mountain ranges which separate west and east population of P. coridon, and this separation causes there to be changes in the allele frequency of both population and there can be mixing of these populations only when there is an area that is connected.

Another type would be the loss of habitat which can lead to large habitat areas being fragmented, this loss can occur due to human interaction with the ecosystem in way that isolates populations of the species. The loss of habitat changes the number of individuals that the area can support or blocks the population off from a larger population. The limiting number of individuals in the population or the isolation can cause a decrease in the heterogeneity of population and leads to a decrease in fitness.

Habitat fragmentation causes conservation efforts to be difficult because it has to be decided what areas get protect or have the best possible chance of helping increase a population without damaging the overall fitness of the population, so great care is taken when selecting what areas will be protected.

Status

According to IUCN Red List for Threatened Species, this particular species is of Least Concern, and this is due to this species not having a significant decline in population in the last ten years, which would be a decline by 25% in the number of adults.

Conservation

Since this species is of Least Concern there are few conservation efforts being put forth. But in certain areas that have been having large decline or had large decline implemented conservation efforts. This species is considered by researchers to be an indicator species of calcareous grassland habitat quality and could also be a good model organism to help develop conservation programs for more At Risk species.

Conservation in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland

All three countries have done research into the conservation of the calcareous grassland. Protecting this species would also lead to helping protect higher trophic level individuals that are located in this ecosystem.

United Kingdom

The chalkhill blue experienced a significant decline in population number in the 1950s. There was a rise in population number from the time period of 1981-2000, in this time period there was a significant increase in population numbers and this increase lead to the stabilization of population number in the 1990s. The UK Biodiversity Action Plan had monitoring plans in place to see these changes and the data that was collected during that time period showed that the increase in population number came from the use of controlling grazing levels, conservation designation, and agri-environment schemes entry and management. These practices improved the quality of the habitats that were located in The United Kingdom.

Germany and Poland

Both Germany and Poland came up with action plans such as that if conservation efforts where to take place that the ideal area for protection would be large habitats that were interconnected with other Grassland habitats that were fragmented, and had a high abundance of the juvenile host plant located within it or had the ability to support a large number of plants.

Biology

Note that information on this species applies to Great Britain and some details may not be consistent with the species in other parts of its range.

In the UK, this is a species favouring unimproved (and unfertilized) chalk downland. Its larval (caterpillar) foodplant is horseshoe vetch (Hippocrepis comosa). It is usually seen on the wing for about 6–8 weeks, July to September.