We studied Lycaena helle (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) population genetics in lowlands and mountains of East-Central Europe using the microsatellite markers previously applied in population studies mainly in mountains of Western Europe. As in the West, the East-Central populations are genetically diverse (mean expected/observed heterozygosity 0.67/0.49), affected by drift processes (mean inbreeding coefficient 0.277) and widely differentiated (mean FST 0.209). The Polish lowland populations, all of them bivoltine in contrast to mountain populations, are less differentiated than Romanian populations, which are bivoltine in low and univoltine in high altitudes. The lowland Romanian population Vad is extremely genetically impoverished. A transferred CZ population from Western Europe is impoverished relative to its donor population, but the genetic parameters remain within a range of other studied so far. Dendrogram of allelic frequencies suggests that the populations form two branches, one rooted in southeastern Poland and branching towards Carpathians in Romania, one encompassing populations in central and northern Poland. We conclude that the lowland Romanian populations, plus populations in unglaciated southeastern Poland, represent sites where the species survived the glacial cycles in situ, comprising rear edge of subsequent upslope expansion, while northern Poland was colonised from more easterly regions.

Division of Biodiversity and Behavioural Ecology Faculty of Biology University of Bialystok Ciołkowskiego 1J 15 245 Białystok Poland

Emil Racovita Institute of Speleology Clinicilor 5 400006 Cluj Napoca Romania

Faculty of Agrobiology Food and Natural Resources Czech University of Life Sciences Kamýcká 129 165 00 Praha Czech Republic

Faculty of Biological Science University of Wrocław Przybyszewskiego 65 51 148 Wrocław Poland

Faculty of Sciences University South Bohemia Branišovská 31 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic

Institute of Entomology Biology Centre CAS Branišovská 31 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic

Zoological Museum Babes Bolyai University 5 7 Clinicilor 400006 Cluj Napoca Romania

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