Dragonflies and climatic change - recent trends in Germany and Europe

Abstract

In this paper the trends of dragonfl y expansions during the last decades in Germany and Europe are summarized. It is shown, that there is a general expansion of many species to the north: Mediterranean species expanded to Central and Northern Europe, whereas some African species expanded to Southern Europe, some are even new to the continent. In general this means an increase of biodiversity, but looking at the ecological eff ects, in the medium term a decrease can be expected for mooreland and alpine species. Dragonfl ies can be regarded as a good indicator group for climatic change. Already now in some areas or regions negative eff ects on waters bodies and their dragonfl y communities can be observed and more will occur if e.g. temperature rises or precipitation decreases. Th e consequences for nature conservation strategies -such as the NATURA 2000 network -are outlined and the general need for monitoring programmes is emphasised.

Diplacodes lefebvrii in Sardinia, a new species for the Italian fauna (Odonata: Libellulidae)

“…Previously, the species was known for Europe from the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula since the first half of the last century (Anonymous 1910;Seabra 1937Seabra , 1938) and a number of new discoveries documented its northward expansion in recent years (Conesa Garcia 1985;Sanchez et al 2009;Knijf & Demolder 2010;Loureiro 2011). The findings reported here confirm this expansion also for Italy and this is in accordance with other reports of a northward expansion of Odonata in Europe, presumably as a consequence of the changing climate (Hickling et al 2005;Ott 2007Ott , 2010. In recent years several other species of Anisoptera from North Africa have expanded their range across the Mediterranean sea.…”

First records of Brachythemis impartita in peninsular Italy (Odonata: Libellulidae)

“…The habitat in the two sites confirms that B. impartita mainly colonizes coastal artificial basins, characterized by open water surrounded by bare banks (Kalkman & De Knijf 2015). Our data suggest that the species expansion in Europe has not come to an end, probably favored by climate change as already documented for other species in Europe (De Knijf & Anselin 2010;Hassall 2015;Hickling et al 2005;Ott 2010;Termaat et al 2010).…”

“…According to some authors, the expansion of the species was favoured, especially in the Western Mediterranean area, by climate change and by the presence of numerous artificial basins (Boudot & De Knijf 2012). The phenomenon of poleward expansion seems related to global warming and has been demonstrated for several insect taxa (Hickling et al 2006;Robinet & Roques 2010), including dragonflies (Hassall 2015; Hickling et al 2005;Ott 2010). Furthermore, amongst Odonata species, it seems more evident for those species which prefer still waters (Grewe et al 2013), like B. impartita.…”

The complete mitochondrial genome of the emperor dragonflyAnax imperatorLEACH, 1815 (Odonata : Aeshnidae) via NGS sequencing

“…Parr 2010) and towards higher altitudes (Westermann 2003;Hunger et al 2006) was noticed due to global climate change. The first records of this species in Sweden were 2002 (Ott 2010). In only 11 years A. imperator crossed a distance of 970 km northwards through Scandinavia (Nielsen 1998;Lejfelt-Sahl en 2007).…”