As part of my graduate research, I will be studying a local butterfly population and its relationship to its host plants and apparent mutualistic interactions with ants.



Boisduval's blue butterfly, Plebejus icarioides (sometimes Aricia icarioides), uses lupine plants as a host for oviposition throughout its range in the Western U.S.  There are populations found primarily on Silver Bush Lupine (Lupinus albifrons) within the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve (BCCER) just north of Chico, CA.  The flight period of the adults is typically mid-late spring to mid-summer, when the lupine are leafed out and flowering.  These populations share an apparent mutualism with ants in which the larvae produce "honeydew" as an offering to the cohabitating ants, in exchange for either guardianship from parasitoids or as a bribe to reduce attacks from the ants.



My research will seek to examine the nuances of this mutualism and how all three species (host plant, butterfly, and ant) interact within the community.