Effectiveness of organic terrace rice cultivation in conservation of odonates in Sikkim, Eastern Himalaya, India

Conversion of natural habitat into agricultural landscape has been identified as one of the major drivers of habitat loss. Human-modified ecosystems, such as agricultural land, have gained significant attention in terms of the conservation of their native biodiversity. We studied the effectiveness of organic agroecosystems in conserving odonate diversity by comparing organic terrace rice cultivation…

Confirming the relationship between body size and perch height in tropical odonates (Odonata: Libellulidae): wet-season contrasts and experimental tests

In a previous study conducted during the dry season at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, mean perch height of libellulid dragonfly species (Odonata: Libellulidae) correlated with male body size, and interactions between species suggested a size-dependent competitive hierarchy. Here, I report on a wet-season study that examined whether seasonal changes in community composition affect…

A hotspot for threatened Mediterranean odonates in the Seybouse River (Northeast Algeria): are IUCN population sizes drastically underestimated?

Several odonate species are threatened in the Mediterranean basin and some of them show alarming decreasing trends. The distribution and population estimations provided by the IUCN are based on occasional field sampling or non-rigorous methodologies and could be erroneous and misleading. To obtain reliable estimations of the population size and distribution of three threatened species,…

Odonates in (slow) motion: a tribute to Georg Rüppell

Odonates in (slow) motion: a tribute to Georg Rüppell Dagmar Hilfert-Rüppella , Andreas Martensb , Frank Suhlingc Institut für Fachdidaktik der Naturwissenschaften, Abteilung Biologie und Biologiedidaktik, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany University of Education Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany Institut für Geoökologie, Division Landscape Ecology and Environmental System Analysis, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany International Journal of (more…)

New EPIC nuclear DNA sequence markers to improve the resolution of phylogeographic studies of coenagrionids and other odonates

While phylogeographic data provide valuable information to inform conservation plans, there are comparatively few Odonata phylogeographic studies. This lack of research is partially due to a lack of independent DNA markers with appropriate levels of polymorphism that PCR-amplify in a range of species. We followed an exon-primed, intron-crossing (EPIC) PCR strategy to develop five new,…

Commented checklist of the Odonata from Colombia

Colombian odonatological history was scarce until two decades ago. Here, we present an updated, thoroughly vetted, and refined checklist of taxonomic and geographical records of Colombian odonates, built upon the previous publication in 2011.