Does the damming of streams in the southern Amazon basin affect dragonfly and damselfly assemblages (Odonata: Insecta)? A preliminary study

Leandro Schlemmer Brasila , Nubia França da Silva Giehla, Sara Miranda Almeidaa, Marco Bruno Xavier Valadãoa, Josias Oliveira dos Santosa, Nelson Silva Pintob, Joana Darc Batistac

  1. Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia e Conservação da Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Mato Grosso, Brazil
  2. Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia e Evolução. Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Goiás, Brasil
  3. Laboratório de Entomologia Aquática – UNEMAT, Mato Grosso, Brazil

International Journal of Odonatology, Volume 17, Issue 4, Pages 187-197, 2014
https://doi.org/10.1080/13887890.2014.963712
Published: 2 October 2014 (Received: 30 April 2014, Accepted: 5 September 2014)

Abstract

Our goal was to investigate whether the loss of riparian forests alters the structure of assemblages and populations of dragonflies and damselflies. We tested the hypothesis that the composition of the odonate assemblages found upstream from dams are significantly different from those found downstream of these barriers. To test the hypothesis, we investigated stream sectors upstream and downstream of three dams located at the extreme of the southern Amazon basin, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. We collected 111 adult odonates, 45 upstream and 69 downstream, representing 18 species, 12 upstream and 10 downstream. The most abundant species was Epipleoneura williamsoni Santos, 1957 (n = 41, 36.9%), followed by Epipleoneura metallica Rácenis, 1955 (n = 20, 18%) and Hetaerina curvicauda Garrison, 1990 (n = 17, 15.3%). Statistical ordination separated the different sectors, with the greatest dissimilarity being found between the upstream and downstream I (DS I), and our hypothesis was further supported by the fact that six of the 18 species recorded in the study did not occur in the upstream sector. As this process may lead to the local extinction of part of the biodiversity of the Amazon–Cerrado transition, even before it is fully understood, we would recommend that the observed pattern be verified through the analysis of other taxonomic groups and on a more ample spatial scale.

Keywords: conservation, biodiversity, environmental change, removal of riparian vegetation, agricultural frontier

Issue section: Article