The Maculinea exhibit a very low tolerance to environmental change while displaying highly specific ecological requirements

	Grassland management experiments

	The relevance of spatial and temporal heterogeneity for the persistence of the system of Maculinea butterflies and Myrmica host ants is currently being addressed. Most Maculinea sites depend on some kind of management activity, often in the form of traditional agriculture to maintain an open vegetation structure and sufficiently high ant nest density (Wynhoff, 2001). The quality of modern day fragmented Maculinea habitats could easily be reduced, should habitat management alter. Consequently, the long term survival of Maculinea will undoubtedly depend on correctly applied conservation measures. ©Sarah Gwillym		©Sarah Gwillym Management experiments with various mowing practises are being conducted within MACMAN. Currently, ANL, one of the associated partners in the MACMAN project is undertaking inter and within-site experiments to manage Maculinea habitats in various ways: mowing once, mowing twice, at various times of the year etc. to determine how grassland sites should best be managed to conserve Maculinea butterflies and biodiversity. From 2004 other project partners involved in the MACMAN project will follow up this research and conduct similar management experiments on their grassland sites.

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