It is expected that climate change will have a great impact on many species and habitats. This will be greater if populations are found at the edge of their range or are isolated, and could lead to regional extinction. Here we investigate the possible impact on two boreo-alpine dragonfly species, Somatochlora alpestris and S. arctica, at their range margins. Both species were unknown for most parts of south-eastern Europe. In 2007 we found 15 localities for S. alpestris and two for S. arctica in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. Both species are there confined to mountain peat bogs. All localities are situated between 1300 m and 2100 m altitude, with the majority restricted to a small range between 1600 m and 1800 m. Based on the factor altitude we predict a hypothetical distribution map for S. alpestris. The underlying models exclusively rely on the ultimate factor "altitude" and explain more than 60% of the deviance. In addition, we assessed the impact of climate change for two scenarios: a 1.5 • C temperature increase and a 3 • C increase. The first resulted in altitudinal range shifts of +200 m and in a distributional shrinkage of 40%, the latter corresponds to an upward range shift of 600 m and a loss of 90% of the area. Habitat specialists, especially those at their margins of distribution, are hardly able to keep pace with climate change. It seems unlikely that mountain peat bogs will develop at rates comparable to those of current climate change. This may effect regional extinctions of boreo-alpine species.

No abstract

Leucorrhinia pectoralis is included in the Bern Convention (Appendix II), the Habitats Directive (Council Directive 92/43/EEC) (Annexes II and IV), the IUCN European Red List of Dragonflies, the IUCN Red List of Mediterranean Dragonflies and in the Red List of Dragonflies of the Carpathians. Typical environments for this species are peatlands, a habitat that is in decline and needs special protection throughout Europe. In the summer of 2014 we investigated ROSCI0247 “Tinovul Mare Poiana Stampei” and identified two males of Leucorrhinia pectoralis. At 4.5 km from this protected area, within the same period, we found several dozen individuals of L. pectoralis in a peat exploit area, called “Turbamin”, an example of human activities contributing accidentally to maintain a rare and protected species in nature.

No abstract

Poecilocampa alpina (Frey & Wullschlegel, 1874) is reported for the first time in the Romanian fauna. The specimen was collected from Porumbenii Mari, Harghita County, Romania. According to the distribution area, respectively to the ecological requirements, Romanian population belongs to the subspecies P. alpina canensis. This reported population is currently the easternmost known population of this species.