Odonate Species Research Articles

Development of Odonata as A Nature Tourism Product for Peat Swamp Ecosystem in North Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve, Johor

Odonates are water quality indicator for the health of freshwater ecosystem, had been used in pharmacology, as dietary items, predators and controlling human diseases. Odonata have a strong tradition of being involved in relaxation and recreation activities in various Asian nations, such as China and Japan. A study on odonate as tourism product was carried out at North Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve, Johor for eight days. The study firstly aimed to determine the diversity of odonate on site. Ten flagships species was then selected based on criteria of a good nature tourism product. The research continued to develop odonatourism as a new product in North Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve, Johor. The method used for species inventory were sticky trapping, sweep netting, and point-counting survey. A total number of 35 species with 465 individuals -had been collected during the research. Data collected revealed that the diversity of odonate in the sampling region is medium as evidenced by the Shannon Weiner Species Diversity Index (2.6126). Analyzing the 35 species of odonates, gauging against the eight Criteria of a Good Nature Tourism Product, 10 species indicated having potentials to be developed into nature tourism products. Based on the selected 10 flagship species, a promotional brochure and a prototype of souvenir were created. Although this research mainly dealt with promoting odonate as potential nature tourism products the necessity to maintain North Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve in Johor is also highlighted.

Gustation Across the Class Insecta: Body Locations

AbstractThis review summarizes which body parts have taste function in which insect taxa. Evidence of taste by mouthparts, antennae, and tarsi is widespread. Mouthparts that commonly have taste function are the labium, including the labella and labial palps, the maxillae, including the galeae and maxillary palps, the inner surface of the labrum or clypeolabrum of chewers, and inside the precibarium/cibarium of hemipterans, which have piercing-sucking mouthparts. Tasting with mandibles has not been found, and tasting with the hypopharynx is seldom reported. Use of the antennae appears uncommon among fly species, but common among species of lepidopterans, hymenopterans, beetles, and bugs. Although tasting with legs, especially tarsi, is reported mostly for fly and lepidopteran species, there is also evidence of it for multiple species of beetles, grasshoppers, and hemipterans, and one species of a roach, an ant, and a bee. Ovipositor taste function has been supported for some species of flies, lepidopterans, hymenopterans, orthopterans, and odonates. Taste by wings has been much less studied, but has been documented in a few fly species. Taste remains unstudied for any species or any body parts of Archaeognatha, Dermaptera, Mantodea, Mecoptera, Phasmatodea, Megaloptera, Neuroptera, Phthiraptera, Psocoptera, Siphonaptera, as well as Raphidioptera, Strepsiptera, Embioptera, Notoptera, and Zoraptera. Across holometabolous insects, larvae have not often been examined, the exception being some species of lepidopterans, flies, and beetles. Taste studies of antenna and legs are uncommon for even lepidopteran and beetle larvae.

Diversity of the Anisoptera & Zygoptera (Odonata: Insecta) of Swat, Pakistan.

Odonates are important biological control agents for the control of insect pests and insect disease vectors of medical and veterinary importance. The present study was conducted to evaluate the odonate fauna of Swat, Pakistan from March to October 2019. A total of 200 specimens of odonates were collected from diverse habitats. The collected specimens of the order Odonata belonged to 5 families, three families of suborder Anisoptera namely Libellulidae, Gomphidae and Aeshnidae while two families of suborder Zygoptera (Chlorocyphidae and Coenagrionidae). The specimens were categorized into 12 genera and 22 species. Libellulidae was the dominant family (n = 138) accounting for 69% of the odonate fauna. Orthetrum was the dominant genus (n = 73) of suborder Anisoptera accounting for 36.5% of the odonate fauna. The least dominant genera were Anax, Paragomphus and Rhyothemis (n = 5 each) accounting each for 2.5% of the odonate fauna. In Zygoptera, the dominant genus was Ceriagrion (12.5%) and the least dominant genus was Ischnura (6%). Pantala flavescens (Fabricius, 1798) was the most abundant odonate species in the study area recorded from all surveyed habitats. Shannon Diversity Index (H) was 2.988 and Simpson Diversity Index (D) was 0.95 for the collected odonate fauna. The highest abundance of Odonata was recorded in August, September and May while no odonate species were recorded in January, February, November and December. Lotic water bodies were the most suitable habitats with abundant odonate fauna. Anax immaculifrons (Rambur, 1842) was the largest sized odonate species having a wingspan of 53.2±1.63 mm and body length of 56.3 ± 0.4 mm. The present study shows the status of odonate fauna of Swat, Pakistan in diverse habitats and seasonsonal variation throughout the year. Further work is recommended to bridge the gaps in the existing literature.

Study of odonates diversity near Koradi Lake, Koradi, Nagpur, Maharashtra

The prominent and colorful insects of wetlands are dragonflies and damselflies (Order: Odonata). These are prevalent near marshy areas, ponds, lakes, rivers, ditches, and other water bodies. They contribute significantly to the biological foundation of all terrestrial ecosystems as herbivores, pollinators, seed dispersers, predators, detritivores, and vectors. They also serve as effective environmental indicators and biocontrol agents. The objective of the present study was to determine the diversity of odonates in the area around Nagpur's Koradi Lake, which is home to a wide variety of birds and insects. Twenty species of Odonates from 15 genera and three families were discovered during the monitoring in the marked areas near the lake. In total, 1071 individual odonates have been observed in the Koradi region. Libellulidae had the most species (12), followed by Coenagrionidae (7 species), and Aeshnidae (1 species). It was noted that urbanisation and pollution could have a negative impact on the diversity of odonates in the Koradi region.

Modeling the extinction risk of European butterflies and odonates.

Insect populations have become increasingly threatened during the last decades due to climate change and landuse intensification. Species characteristics driving these threats remain poorly understood. Trait-based analyses provide a straight-forward approach to gain a mechanistic understanding of species' extinction risk, guiding the development of conservation strategies. We combined morphological traits and phylogenetic relationship for 332 European species of butterflies and 115 species of odonates (dragon and damselflies) to model their red list status via phylogenetically controlled ordered logistic regression. We hypothesized that extinction risk increases with increasing body volume and wing area, decreasing range size, and is larger for brighter species. All investigated traits exhibited a strong phylogenetic signal. When controlling for phylogenetic relationship, we found that extinction risk of butterflies increased with decreasing range size. The extinction risk of odonates showed no relationship with the selected traits. Our results show that there is no universal trait defining the extinction risk of our investigated insect taxa. Furthermore, evolutionary history, measured as the phylogenetically predicted part of our analyzed traits, poorly predicted extinction risk. Our study confirms the focus of conservation measures on European butterfly species with small range sizes.

The Odonate fauna (Insecta: Odonata) of Belihuloya, southern intermediate zone of Sri Lanka: A preliminary assessment and conservation implications

Belihuloya situated in a biogeographical transition zone in south-central Sri Lanka is being threatened by land-use changes. Establishing baseline biodiversity knowledge of an indicator taxon within this lesser explored area, the present study systematically assessed its Odonate fauna in different habitat types through a transect survey supplemented with incidental observations. Further, the morphology of larvae and exuvia of some Odonates were opportunistically documented from selected water bodies. Transect survey and opportunistic observations identified 36 species of Odonates (22 dragonflies and 14 damselflies) representing ten families, with ten Sri Lankan endemics. Four species of dragonflies and eight damselflies are nationally threatened, including critically endangered Elattoneura centralis and endangered Libellago greeni . The calculated species richness (R), Shannon-Wiener diversity (H’), evenness (E) and Simpson’s diversity (1/D) values were, 3.51, 2.40, 0.85 and 7.90 for dragonflies, and 2.85, 2.36, 0.92 and 8.68 for damselflies respectively, while two groups show vertical niche segregation. Low Odonate community similarity coefficients among habitat types indicate they are complementary for conservation planning. Out of ten Odonate species for which larval stages were recorded, the larval morphology of Anax indicus and Gynacantha dravida are described for the first time in Sri Lanka. Baseline data provided here are used for evidence-based conservation recommendations. • Odonate fauna from Belihuloya, Sri Lanka includes 36 species (22 in Anisoptera and 14 in Zygoptera). • This includes 12 nationally threatened species (2 critically endangered [CR], 1 endangered [EN] and 9 vulnerable [VU]). • The larval morphology of Anax indicus and Gynacantha dravida are described for the first time in Sri Lanka.

The conspicuousness contradiction: brighter males have lower mating chances in the damselfly Argia hasemani but not in Argia croceipennis

Abstract In odonates, male coloration is often more conspicuous than female coloration. This difference is frequently attributed to the role of male colour in male–male competition to access females. However, there are sexually dimorphic odonate species, such as the damselflies Argia hasemani and Argia croceipennis, in which male–male interactions are much less intense. In these species, it might be that male coloration affects male success directly when interacting with females. Therefore, we hypothesized that males with more intense coloration present higher copulation success. To investigate this hypothesis, we registered which males copulated in the field during 4 days and estimated the coloration of all observed males in the female visual spectrum. Surprisingly, we found that dull males had higher chances of copulation in A. hasemani, whereas in A. croceipennis male coloration did not influence the chances of copulation. Our data also indicated that brighter males of A. hasemani were also more conspicuous to potential avian predators, whereas this was not the case in A. croceipennis. We suggest that females of A. hasemani might avoid brighter males owing to increased risk of predation during copulation.

Country‐level checklists and occurrences for the world's Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies)

AbstractAimBiogeographical inference and assessments of species' threat status and trends depend on comprehensive information on the current geographical distribution of species. Even country‐level presences remain poorly known for many insect species and consistent global overviews for those species are missing. Here we integrate information from literature checklists, point occurrences, and identify potential species range gaps to provide a database of country‐level checklists of dragonfly and damselfly species and a useful baseline for global biogeographical assessment and for assessing remaining gaps in taxonomic and spatial knowledge.LocationGlobal.TaxonOdonata (damselflies and dragonflies).MethodsOur database of checklist information contains country‐level species distribution information from 491 literature sources, with a focus on checklist data from 1990 to 2021 to reflect the present taxonomic and country boundaries. Additionally, we apply a novel method to interpolate potential species–country combinations missing from the literature and point data by generating a list of species present in >50% of the surrounding countries.ResultsOf the 6,322 globally recognized odonate species, taxonomically harmonized literature checklist records and quality‐controlled point occurrence data address 6,076 and 4,170 species, respectively. Our compilation provides a total of 31,569 unique species–country combinations, with 23,239 uniquely provided by literature checklist and 2,031 point occurrence data, respectively.Main ConclusionsThis odonate country checklist dataset provides a resource for scientists and conservation practitioners to examine questions related to baseline odonate species richness, distributions, regional conservation, and gaps in taxonomic and spatial data coverage. The combined literature and point occurrence country‐level information provide the most comprehensive data available to date on the global distribution of Odonata. Our results show that checklist and point occurrences are concordant in well‐studied regions and that literature data are of complementary value in tropical and species‐rich countries.

Resilient dragons: Exploring Odonata communities in an urbanization gradient

Cities function as ecological systems composed of a geosphere, a biosphere and an anthroposphere, interacting with each other and generating various selection pressures on urban organisms. Odonates (damselflies and dragonflies) are frequent inhabitants of urban areas, showing no clear or unique responses to urbanization. Thus, we defined an urbanization gradient using a habitat integrity index (HII) calculated for 19 sites in central Mexico, and investigated: a) changes in species richness and abundance along the urbanization gradient; and, b) the relationship between presence of waste of anthropic origin, chemical conditions of water, macrophyte cover, and odonate species richness, abundance and community composition. We analyzed the data for the whole odonate community, as well as for dragonfly and damselfly communities separately in each site. We found higher damselfly species richness and abundance in sites with low urbanization than in sites with high urbanization, and no differences in dragonfly communities along the gradient. We found a positive relationship between dragonfly species richness and abundance and waste percentage and macrophyte cover, and a negative relationship with dissolved solids in water. Our results indicated that odonate communities were fairly tolerant to urbanization and dragonflies were less affected than damselflies. However, we suggest that during design and restructuring of cities, the care and conservation of water bodies and all the life forms that inhabit there, be considered.

A Checklist of Odonata (Insecta) of Dibrugarh District of Assam, India

Dibrugarh district of Assam is situated to proximity to the junction of Eastern Himalayas and Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspots. Climatic conditions of the district support a very rich biodiversity, where Odonatdes (Dragonflies and Damselflies) are an important component. The present study was carried out in Dibrugarh district to document the status and distribution of odonates from April, 2019 to May, 2022. A total number of 81 species of odonates representing 54 genera and 11 families have been recorded in this study. Conservation status of the recorded species indicates that 69 species were under the category of Least Concern (LC), 7 species were Data Deficient (DD) and 1 species was Not Evaluated (NE). However, habitat destruction due to lack of awareness among the local people is the potential threat to the conservation of odonates in the district.

Diversity of Odonates in Agricultural Field’s of Satana (Baglan) Taluka, Nashik District, Maharashtra, India

The present survey has been carried out on Odonata of agricultural field, Satana (Baglan) Nashik district, Maharashtra because it is now clear that agricultural fields are unique ecosystem that provides several services to Odonates. So, the different Odonates depend on these fields and their diversity also signs of good health of agroecosystems. But now-a-day agricultural land are gradually decreasing due to the rapid growth of highways, housing and factories. So, Odonates of these fields are also under risk. This side of the agricultural area is less highlighted so the main aim of this study to the prepare a list of those odonates which use these fields. There is the study was carried out for a period of two years i.e. July 2019 to July 2021. There are total of 21 species of Odonates were recorded during the period of the study. Maximum of 9 species falls under family Libellulidae followed by 6 species falls under Coenagrionidae and followed by 4 species fall under Platycnemididae and Lestidae and Aeshnidae showed less species diversity and represented by only one species. There are the maximum species richness reported from Monsoon and postMonsoon season. Keywords: - Agricultural field, Satana (Baglan), Odonates, Dragonflies, Damselflies, Diversity, Distribution.

The dragonflies and damselflies (Insecta: Odonata) of Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuary, southern Western Ghats, India

The odonate diversity of Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuary, southern Western Ghats (WG) of Kerala state, is discussed in this paper. A total of 181 species belonging to 87 genera and 14 families have been compiled for Kerala and this includes 68 Western Ghats endemics. A total of 116 species of odonates including 33 endemics were recorded for the region. A total of 41 damselflies (Zygoptera) and 75 dragonflies (Anisoptera) were recorded for the sanctuary. Shendurney thus harbours 56.04 % of WG and 64.08 % of the odonate diversity of Kerala. In addition, this includes 48.52% of Kerala and 41.25 % of endemic odonates of Western Ghats. About 29% of all the species recorded for the Shendurney are endemic to WG. With respect to IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, one species is ‘Endangered’, three ‘Vulnerable’, two ‘Near Threatened’, 84 ‘Least Concern’, 20 ‘Data Deficient’, and six species whose IUCN Red List status was not assessed. Family Libellulidae (41 species) dominated the odonate diversity, followed by Coenagrionidae (15 species) and Gomphidae (13 species). Regarding the occurrence status, we found that 11 species were Very Common, 42 species were found to be Common, 34 species Not Rare, 10 species were Rare, and 19 species were Very Rare inside the sanctuary. None of the species listed is protected under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act 1972.

Modeling Mosquitoes and their Potential Odonate Predators Under Different Land Uses.

To efficiently face the accelerated landscape transformation and its consequences in restructuring biotic communities and ecosystem services, one first question is which regional systems deserve prioritization for empirical assessments and interventive strategies. For the particular case of vector-borne disease control, we should consider generalist predators exhibiting differential responses to land-use change, as is the case of odonate insects. Thus, our aim was to infer land uses in Mexico where odonates (i.e., damselflies and dragonflies) might have some potential to predate mosquitoes of medical relevance. The study area included the hydrological basins of central Mexico. We modelled 167 species of odonates, four species of mosquitoes, and 51 land-use categories. Inferring spatial co-occurrence patterns from data mining and complex networks, we identified: (1) the ecological network of odonates and mosquitoes and (2) the land uses shared by these two groups. We inferred that 34% of odonate species co-occur with mosquitoes of medical relevance mainly in some preserved-mountain mesophyll cloud forest, high evergreen rainforest, and low tropical dry forest-but also in highly modified-human settlements, irrigation-based and pastures crop fields-land uses with strong human presence. Our findings highlight the relevance of community-regional studies for understanding the public health consequences of landscape change.

Odonata identification using Customized Convolutional Neural Networks

The alarming decline of the Odonates (Dragonflies and Damselflies) population needs urgent conservation efforts to balance nature’s food cycle and reduce the negative impact on humans, such as the increasing number of mosquito-borne diseases. The existing odonates identification approaches are not efficient and are mainly based on domain expertise which is highly time-consuming and expensive. The fast-growing Artificial Intelligence technologies have shown impressive solutions to many real-world problems, including wildlife conservation and management. In this study, we proposed the use of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) for the identification of odonates. Firstly, we create a large Odonates image dataset comprising 54,176 images belonging to 256 species of odonates. Secondly, we employ nine Customized CNN architectures namely AlexNet, DenseNet121, DenseNet161, DenseNet201, ResNet18, ResNet101, ResNet152, SqueezeNet v1.1, and VGG19 to train our odonates image dataset. Finally, we then compared and empirically studied the performance of our proposed CNN architectures at various image resolutions (224px × 224px, 350px × 350px, 450px × 450px and 550px × 550px). Our pretrained custom DenseNet161 (450px × 450px) performed with highest top-1 accuracy (93.53%), ResNet152 (224px × 224px) with the highest top-3 accuracy (98.07%), DenseNet121 (450px × 450px), and ResNet152 (224px × 224px) with highest top-5 accuracy (98.85%) and DenseNet201 (550px × 550px) with highest F1 score (86.17%). SqueezeNet v1.1 performed the least with highest top-1 accuracy of 83.3%, highest top-3 accuracy (94.24%), highest top-5 accuracy (96.59%), and the highest F1 score (77.68%). The results of our study show that odonates can be reliably and instantly identified using our proposed methodology and the customized model.

Development of two common dragonfly species with diverging occupancy trends

The two sibling and syntopic odonate species Sympetrum striolatum and Sympetrum vulgatum are common and widespread in Central Europe. While S. striolatum has strong positive population trends, declines of S. vulgatum are observed. The aim of this study was to identify possible drivers of these diverging trends. We presumed that differences in egg development may lead to differences in survival until hatching. First, eggs laid in non-permanent or shrinking waterbodies may suffer of increasing drought periods. Second, differences in developement may cause increased size-mediated intraguild predation, a common cause of reduced survival in odonate larvae. Egg development time and hatching rates were recorded of eleven egg clutches of S. vulgatum and ten clutches of S. striolatum under simulated drought vs. water and direct vs. delayed development treatments. Hatching rates were reduced under drought conditions, and particularly so in S. vulgatum. We did not observe obligate winter diapause in any of the egg clutches. But, S. vulgatum varied widely in development between clutches, while the eggs of S. striolatum developed much faster and hatched highly synchronously. This would provide S. striolatum with a temporal advantage that may lead to a size-advantage over most S. vulgatum. We also found that S. vulgatum grew faster. Faster larval growth would only compensate for those S. vulgatum with fast egg development. The current population trends may be partly attributed to lowered survival of S. vulgatum under drought and by phenological and, thus, size benefits of S. striolatum.Implications for insect conservationOur results show that population dynamics of two closely related dragonfly species can be explained by climatically induced changes in their interactions. Understanding the causes and processes of behavioural changes resulting in differing population trends is fundamental for the protection of species.

Dragonflies and damselflies (Insecta: Odonata) of Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India

The present study was carried out to reveal the odonate diversity in Jabalpur city and its surrounding area in Madhya Pradesh, central India. During the study period of 2008–2019 a total of 75 species of odonates belonging to two suborders and nine families were recorded. Twenty-one new species were recorded for Jabalpur district and four for Madhya Pradesh; 37% (28) species were abundant or very common, 19% (14) were common, 16% (12) were frequent, 24% (18) rare, and 4% (3) very rare. The maximum number of odonates were found in family Libellulidae (n= 32), followed by Coenagrionidae (n= 17), Gomphidae (n= 09), Platycenemididae (n= 06), Aeshnidae (n= 05), Lestidae (n= 03), Macromiidae (n= 02), and Chlorocyphidae (n= 01). Of 75 species recorded from Jabalpur city, 72 come under the IUCN Red List. Among them, Indothemis carnatica come under Near Threatened (NT) category, 65 species come under Least Concern (LC) Category, six species under Data Deficient (DD), and three species remain not assessed. The study supports the value of the city area in providing habitat for Odonata.

The damselfly genus Megaloprepus (Odonata: Pseudostigmatidae): Revalidation and delimitation of species-level taxa including the description of one new species.

As the longest-winged odonate species of the extant world, Megaloprepus caerulatus (Drury, 1782) has received attention by many entomologists. While the behavior and ecology of this species has been subject of intense studies, biogeography and species status throughout its distributional range in old-growth Neotropical forests are less well known. For tropical forests, this information is a sine qua non when estimating the impact of degradation and climate change. Recent population genetic analyses, quantitative morphometric, and traditional taxonomic studies rediscovered a complex composed of cryptic species within the genus Megaloprepus Rambur, 1842up until now still regarded as a monotypic genus. Here we introduce one new species Megaloprepus diaboli sp. nov. from the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica and from the central Caribbean coast of Honduras and Guatemala. The holotype is from the Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica (N82855.62 W833513.92), and was deposited at the National Museum of Costa Rica. Aside from M. caerulatus, two formerly described and later refused species within the genus were reevaluated and consequently raised to species status: Megaloprepus latipennis Selys, 1860 is found in the northeastern regions of Mesoamerica and Megaloprepus brevistigma Selys, 1860 in South America east of the Andes. Morphological descriptions of selected specimens (holotype of M. diaboli, lectotype of M. latipennis, and the mature males of M. brevistigma and M. caerulatus) are provided. Diagnostic features of the four species are illustrated, discussed, and summarized in a key to adult males.

Natural history of Odonata assemblages in tropical streams in Puerto Rico

ABSTRACT Freshwater macroinvertebrates play an important role in maintaining stream food webs. Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) are important top predators in these communities and serve as indicators of stream health. Our understanding of odonate assemblages is limited in the Caribbean and the natural history of most odonate species in the region remains unknown. The focus of this research is to study the natural history of odonate species in headwater montane streams following major hurricane impacts in Puerto Rico. We monitored assemblages from August 2018 to July 2019 in two headwater streams within El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico. The study streams drain a protected forest, with aseasonal precipitation patterns, relatively constant water temperature, and flashy hydrographs that quickly respond to rain events. We sampled 226 adults and 550 larvae, dominated by three Caribbean endemics: Scapanea frontalis, Macrothemis celeno, and Telebasis vulnerata. Only S. frontalis and M. celeno were abundant enough to assess the temporal patterns and their natural history. Larval density fluctuated throughout the year with short peaks in abundance during different times of the year, according to the species. Small individuals (≤10 mm body length) were more abundant than the large ones. However, all size classes were present during the year. The dominant species, S. frontalis and M. celeno, had continuous development patterns, without identifiable size classes and multiple overlapping generations. The exception was the last stadium that formed a separate group in the body length vs head width plots. Species had clear habitat preferences; S. frontalis was abundant in riffles and preferred areas with high amounts of cobble. Macrothemis celeno prefers pool habitats with fine substrates. While we found trends for negative relations between abundance and discharge, canopy cover, water temperature, and rainfall, none was statistically significant. Observed patterns suggest a lack of strong temporal seasonality in the natural history of Odonata, which coincides with the aseasonal environment of streams draining our study area. Overall, our study is the first to assess temporal variability of Odonata assemblages in montane streams of Puerto Rico and provides information on Caribbean endemic species.

DNA Barcoding and New Records of Odonates (Insecta: Odonata) from Paraíba State, Brazil

Odonates (Insecta: Odonata) are important insects in the food chains of freshwater environments around the world, being used as a model species for areas of behavior and analysis of environmental quality. In Brazil, especially in the Northeastern region, both knowledge about the distribution and molecular information of odonate species found in the two main biomes of the region is still limited. Aiming to improve these issues, here, we carried out an Odonata survey in two locations and built a DNA barcode database for species from the state of Paraíba. In total, 15 first records were reported for this Brazilian state and 142 specimens from 27 genera and 45 species had their ‘Folmer’ cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) fragment evaluated. The database we generated includes data for 70% of the Odonata species found in Paraíba state. For 16 species, this is the first DNA barcode available in public sequence repositories. Our results demonstrate that using the COI in the regional scale can help identify and delimit those evaluated. Eight species (17%) showed a low percentage of differentiation (<2%) compared to other species currently deposited in the GenBank or BOLD System; nevertheless, we present morphological traits that reaffirm our identifications. Barcode data provide new insights into Neotropical diversity and deliver basic information for taxonomic analyses.

Using functional traits and phylogeny to understand local extinction risk in dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata).

Understanding the risk of local extinction of a species is vital in conservation biology, especially now when anthropogenic disturbances and global warming are severely changing natural habitats. Local extinction risk depends on species traits, such as its geographical range size, fresh body mass, dispersal ability, length of flying period, life history variation, and how specialized it is regarding its breeding habitat. We used a phylogenetic approach because closely related species are not independent observations in the statistical tests. Our field data contained the local extinction risk of 31 odonate (dragonflies and damselflies) species from Central Finland. Species relatedness (i.e., phylogenetic signal) did not affect local extinction risk, length of flying period, nor the geographical range size of a species. However, we found that closely related species were similar in hind wing length, length of larval period, and habitat of larvae. Both phylogenetically corrected (PGLS) and uncorrected (GLM) analysis indicated that the geographical range size of species was negatively related to local extinction risk. Contrary to expectations, habitat specialist species did not have higher local extinction rates than habitat generalist species nor was it affected by the relatedness of species. As predicted, species’ long larval period increased, and long wings decreased the local extinction risk when evolutionary relatedness was controlled. Our results suggest that a relatively narrow geographical range size is an accurate estimate for a local extinction risk of an odonate species, but the species with long life history and large habitat niche width of adults increased local extinction risk. Because the results were so similar between PGLS and GLM methods, it seems that using a phylogenetic approach does not improve predicting local extinctions.