Abstract
AbstractAimPoleward range shifts of species are among the most obvious effects of climate change on biodiversity. As a consequence of these range shifts, species communities are predicted to become increasingly composed of warm‐dwelling species, but this has only been studied for a limited number of taxa, mainly birds, butterflies and plants. As species groups may vary considerably in their adaptation to climate change, it is desirable to expand these studies to other groups, from different ecosystems. Freshwater macroinvertebrates, such as dragonflies (Odonata), have been ranked among the species groups with highest priority. In this paper, we investigate how the occurrence of dragonflies in Europe has changed in recent decades, and if these changes are in parallel with climate change.LocationEurope.MethodsWe use data from 10 European geographical regions to calculate occupancy indices and trends for 99 (69%) of the European species. Next, we combine these regional indices to calculate European indices. To determine if changes in regional dragonfly communities in Europe reflect climatic warming, we calculate Species Temperature Indices (STI), Multi‐species Indicators (MSI) and Community Temperature Indices (CTI).Results55 of 99 considered species increased in occupancy at European level, 32 species remained stable, and none declined. Trends for 12 species are uncertain. MSI of cold‐dwelling and warm‐dwelling species differ in some of the regions, but increased at a similar rate at European level. CTI increased in all regions, except Cyprus. The European CTI increased slightly.Main conclusionsEuropean dragonflies, in general, have expanded their distribution in response to climate change, even though their CTI lags behind the increase in temperature. Furthermore, dragonflies proved to be a suitable species group for monitoring changes in communities, both at regional and continental level.
Highlights
Climate change has a profound impact on the occurrence of many species of plants and animals (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003; Root et al, 2003; Walther et al, 2002)
We follow Devictor et al (2012a), with the principal difference that we focus on regional communities based on occupancy data from km squares, instead of local commu‐ nities based on abundance data from transects ( Devictor et al, 2012a included an analysis on presence–absence data which compares with our approach)
Highest Community Temperature Indices (CTI) increases were found for regions on a moderate latitude and for Andalusia, while lowest CTI increases were found for Britain, France and Bavaria
Summary
Climate change has a profound impact on the occurrence of many species of plants and animals (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003; Root et al, 2003; Walther et al, 2002). Com‐ munities are predicted to become increasingly composed of warm‐ dwelling, mobile species This may seem straightforward, but the effects of climate change on species’ trends and community compositions have only been studied for a limited number of taxa (but see Hickling et al, 2006; Mason et al, 2015), mainly birds, butterflies and plants (Bertrand et al, 2011; Britton, Beale, Towers, & Hewison, 2009; Clavero, Villero, & Brotons, 2011; Davey, Devictor, Jonzén, Lindström, & Smith, 2013; Devictor et al, 2012a; Jiguet et al, 2010; Roth, Plattner, & Amrhein, 2014; Virkkala & Lehikoinen, 2014). We hypothesize that (a) warm‐dwelling species have more positive trends than cold‐dwelling species, that, as a consequence, (b) warm‐dwelling species have increased their share in regional communities and (c) that these effects increase on a south–north gradient through Europe, as the ratio of warm‐ and cold‐dwelling species decreases with increasing latitude
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