Journal
JOURNAL OF INSECT CONSERVATION
Volume 19, Issue 5, Pages 961-974Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10841-015-9813-2
Keywords
Ecological trap; Intensive fish pond; Habitat preference; Dragonfly conservation; Odonata
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Funding
- IET - Structural Funds of the European Union [CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0100]
- National Feasibility Programme I of the Czech Republic [LO1208]
- Grant Agency of University of Ostrava [SGS28/PrF/2014, SGS33/PrF/2014]
- Grant Agency of the Czech Republic [GA14-04258S]
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The concept of ecological traps, in which animals settle in low-quality habitats, is well-established. Dragonflies are a good model for investigating the effects of ecological traps because their habitat selection process can be directly observed. Unfortunately, most such studies focus on oviposition on artificial materials, such as car surfaces, gravestones, and plastic foils, which results in complete mortality of the clutch. It remains unclear to what extent intensive fish ponds, ubiquitous in the European agricultural landscape, act as ecological traps for some dragonfly species and how they influence their vulnerability. We investigated the effects of putative ecological traps on the threatened dragonfly Sympetrum depressiusculum and the common closely related species S. sanguineum in a Central European agricultural landscape. Observations of adult behavior were used to parameterize GLMs examining the attractiveness of five fish ponds (three fish breeding and two intensive) to each species. We also counted exuviae at each pond as a measure of each species' survival. We used GLMMs to determine which factors affected selection of oviposition sites and the environmental factors resulting in ecological traps for each species. All five ponds were attractive to ovipositing pairs of both species, although they were largely unsuitable for subsequent development (four for S. depressiusculum and two for S. sanguineum). Our results provide evidence that intensive fish ponds act as ecological traps for both species. We believe that cutting of the vegetation surrounding trap habitats could be an effective way to decrease their attractiveness to a wide range of dragonfly species.
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