Specialeeksamen: Marie Hauge

Change in genetic variation of Maculinea alcon over time

Supervisor: David Nash

Censor: Thomas Damm Als, Aarhus University

Abstract
Maculinea alcon is a parasitic butterfly that spends its first three larval stages feeding on its food plant Gentiana pneumonanthe. When it reaches its fourth larval instar it falls to the ground where it waits for a Myrmica ant to collect it, and transfer it to the nest. In the nest the butterfly larvae feed on ant brood as well as being fed by the worker ants. Because of this very specific life style and due to habitat destruction and fragmentation M. alcon is listed as vulnerable. I used Microsatellite data to look at the genetic variation, to see if there was any change in genetic variation over time. I also looked at the genetic structure. I found that the more isolated populations were the only ones that suffered from decrease in genetic variation, where the connected populations didn’t experience any significant drop in genetic variation. I found isolation by distance, meaning that populations further apart from each other are more genetically differentiated. For Jutland I found that the temporal variation was smaller than the geographic variation, where it was the opposite trend in Læsø. This is probably because the distances between the Læsø populations are smaller than the distances between the Jutland populations, making gene flow more prominent in Læsø.