Ábrahám Levente – Farkas Sándor: Butterflies along the river Drava, 2008
Habitats of Natura 2000 butterflies along Dráva From investigations of the butterfly fauna it was found that Natura 2000 species in the Drava region occupy their habitats along a hydro-ecological gradient, and react sensitively to environmental changes. Freyers purple emperor (Apatura metis) is a strongly hygrophilous species, always found in softwood gallery forests, at rivershore sections directly beside the water. Other hygrophilous species include large copper (Lycaenadispar), scarce large blue (Maculinea teleius), and dusky large blue (Maculinea nausithous), but their populations are found in marshy meadows and wet meadows with great burnet. Scarce fritillary (Euphydryasmaturna) and woodland brown (Lopingaachine) are associated with margins of hardwood gallery forests. Smaller or greater populations of clouded Apollo (Parnassius mnemosyne}, too, are found in forest edge habitats, but this species is already mesophilous. The southern festoon (Zerynthia potyxena) cannot be fit into this hydro-ecological gradient, because its occurrences follow the distribution of its host plant . It is a monophagous species, feeding only on birthwort. It is not always simple to determine exact habitat types for particular species, because quite often they are associated with different habitats in different developmental stages. The plant species composition is only one of habitat characteristics, besides which the structure of vegetation and the presence or absence of other factors can be equally important. These i nclude the existence of ants for maculinea blue (Maculinea), or humidity for Freyers purple emperor (Apatura metis).
