Odonata of the Osa Peninsula - Frontier

Introduction
Dragonflies (Insecta: Odonata) are amongst the most attractive and captivating groups of
insects. Their bright colors, aerial acrobatics, large body size and unique mating patterns
capture everyone’s attention. In Latin America, a lack of field guides, active researchers and a
widespread ignorance have caused this order to be understudied in comparison to other parts
of the world. In a world where land managers are limited by a combination of time, money
and personnel constraints, the use of secondary approaches to monitor biodiversity and detect
change in habitat quality is essential. Dragonflies are excellent invertebrates to include in
monitoring programs because of their usefulness as indicators for assessing both terrestrial
and aquatic habitats (Schmidt, 1985; Corbet, 1993; Chovanec, 2000; Schindler et al. 2003).
Dragonflies can be used as indicators of ecological health, ecological integrity, environmental
change and the hydrological dynamics of water bodies (Clark and Samways, 1996; Moore
1997; Chovanec and Waringer, 2001; Flenner and Sahlen, 2008). There are many advantages
of using dragonflies as bioindicators (summarized by Chovanec and Waringer, 2001):
� Advanced knowledge on the ecological requirements of a large number of Odonate
species.
� A high correlation between the presence of habitat components and the presence of
certain species.
� A relatively small number of species (approximately 5.000 worldwide as opposed to
100.000 species of butterflies. Esquivel, 2006) which can often be identified in the
field.
� A relatively long ontogenetic development makes medium to long-term monitoring
possible.
� They react rapidly to a change in habitat quality by appearance/disappearance or by a
change in abundance.
� They serve as umbrella species representing both aquatic and terrestrial assemblages.
Before the use of dragonflies can become a common practice in Central America, we need to
fill some of the gaps in our current knowledge on this order. For example, little is known
about the seasonal diversity, behavior, migration patterns and larva-adult associations of most
species in this order (Esquivel, 2006). Thereby, very little region specific baseline inventory
lists are published that can be used for conservation planning.
In the present study, the dragonfly assemblage of a forest reserve owned by Osa Conservation
on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica was studied with the overall aim of filling some of the
earlier described gaps in our knowledge of Central American Odonata. The objectives of this
study are:
1) To collect baseline presence/absence data to which future surveys can be compared to
in order to detect changes in habitat quality that may have gone unnoticed by humans.
2) To collect data on habitat use and seasonality.
3) To create a photo ID guide of the species present in the area to facilitate future
research efforts.