Remarkable Population Resilience in a North African Endemic Damselfly in the Face of Rapid Agricultural Transformation

Khelifa, Rassim; Mahdjoub, Hayat; Baaloudj, Affef; Cannings, Robert A.; Samways, Michael J.

doi:10.3390/insects12040353

Cited by 9 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 61 publications

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“…4) Farming and forestry. Most wetlands and rivers are bordered by highly transformed agricultural land with intensified farming systems that rely heavily on pesticides and fertilizers (Khelifa et al, 2021b), affecting the diversity and composition of odonate assemblages (Kietzka et al, 2018), particularly specialists. Shifting to organic farming will reduce harmful toxic run-off and fertilizer-induced eutrophication, which is a major problem in NAR.…”

Section: Recommendations For Conservation and Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dragonfly Conservation in the Increasingly Stressed African Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems

Khelifa

Deacon

Mahdjoub

et al. 2021

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Freshwater habitats worldwide are experiencing many threats from environmental and anthropogenic sources, affecting biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. In Africa, particularly in Mediterranean climate zones, rapid human population growth is predicted to have great impact on natural habitats besides naturally occurring events such as unpredictable drought frequency and severity. Here, we analyze the potential correlation between odonate assemblage conservation priority (measured with the Dragonfly Biotic Index: DBI) and the magnitude of climate change and human perturbation in African regions with a dominant Mediterranean climate, namely Northern (NAR: Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) and Southern African region (SAR: South Africa). Using a compilation of studies assessing odonate assemblages in lotic and lentic habitats of both regions (295 sites in NAR and 151 sites in SAR), we estimated DBI, temporal change in average annual temperature (T), annual precipitation (P), and human footprint index (HFI) in each site, then we tested whether sites with different levels of DBI were associated with different magnitudes of climatic and anthropogenic change. We estimated past (between 1980–1999 and 2000–2018) and future changes (between 1980–1999 and 2081–2100) in T and P based on three CMIP6 scenarios representing low (SSP126), moderate (SSP245), and high emission (SSP585), as well as the change in HFI from 1993 to 2009. We found that assemblages with higher DBI (i.e. higher conservation priority) encountered lower increase in T and slightly greater decrease in P than assemblages with lower DBI (i.e. lower conservation priority) in NAR during 1980–2018, but are projected to experience higher increase in T and lower decrease in P in future projections for 2081–2100. In SAR, the increase in T was mostly similar across assemblages but the decline in P was higher for assemblages with higher DBI during 1980–2018 and 2081–2100, suggesting that assemblages of higher conservation priority in SAR are threatened by drought. While HFI showed an overall increase in NAR but not in SAR, its temporal change showed only minor differences across assemblages with different DBI levels. We discuss the importance of management plans to mitigate the effects of climatic and anthropogenic threats, so improving conservation of odonate assemblages in these regions.

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Section: Recommendations For Conservation and Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dragonfly Conservation in the Increasingly Stressed African Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems

Khelifa

Deacon

Mahdjoub

et al. 2021

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Forest expansion affects Odonata assemblage in floodplain: a case study in the Kiso River, central Japan

Higashikawa,

Matsuzawa,

Mori

2024

Limnology

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In floodplains, which are highly modified and less inundated, trees are expanding, thus raising concerns regarding their impact on freshwater organisms. We analyzed the relationship between forest expansion and the change in Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) assemblage over an extended period of time in the floodplain with ponds of the Kiso River, central Japan. In the 1970s, the ponds were mainly surrounded by grasslands, and approximately 80% of Odonata species were non-forest species. However, the number of forest species increased and that of non-forest species largely decreased with the forest expansion over the past five decades, resulting in almost a similar number of forest and non-forest species in 2021. Whereas the abundance of the non-forest species had been greater than that of the forest species until the 2000s, the difference has been much smaller in the 2010s, and the non-forest species occupied approximately only 30% of the number of individuals in 2021. The forest expansion may have reduced the open-lentic habitats for the non-forest species, which require riparian grasslands for resting, foraging, and reproduction, and may disturb the immigration of non-forest species from the adjacent rice paddy fields and rivers. The development of canopy cover over the waterbodies may have decreased the light and temperature above and within the ponds, which might have caused a decline in species that prefer warm and open-water environments. Maintaining shifting-mosaic patterns of vegetation around the floodplain waterbodies through active management may be effective in conserving floodplain Odonata communities, including both forest and non-forest species.

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Future invasion risk assessment of the peacock bass in Neotropical ecoregions: A conceptual and testable model

Klippel,

Franco,

Macêdo

et al. 2024

Global Ecology and Conservation

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Remarkable Population Resilience in a North African Endemic Damselfly in the Face of Rapid Agricultural Transformation

Cited by 9 publications

References 61 publications

Dragonfly Conservation in the Increasingly Stressed African Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems

Dragonfly Conservation in the Increasingly Stressed African Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems

Forest expansion affects Odonata assemblage in floodplain: a case study in the Kiso River, central Japan

Future invasion risk assessment of the peacock bass in Neotropical ecoregions: A conceptual and testable model

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