Survey data matter: predicted niche of adult vs breeding Odonata

Abstract

AbstractAssessing and categorizing habitat needs or population trends of organisms with complex life histories, such as Odonata, is challenging. All Odonata have aquatic nymphs and terrestrial adults. As a consequence, their use as indicators of ecosystem health or as umbrella species in conservation plans may be misleading if data from a particular life stage does not reflect actual residency at a freshwater site. We explored this question with an extensive data set for Odonata from Oklahoma, USA, to determine if ecological niches modeled from records of adults (i.e., lacking any evidence of breeding) differed from niches modeled for records indicating breeding (tandem pairs, ovipositing females, larvae, teneral [recently emerged adults], or exuviae [shed exoskeletons of larvae]) at surveyed sites. We predicted that models would be comparable if adult presence strongly indicates local breeding but would be dissimilar if adults occupy many more sites than those at which the species breeds. Our results sup...