The sensitivity of dragonflies to landscape structure differs between life-history groups

Contrasting life-history strategies of long versus short pre-reproductive phases are known in adult dragonflies (Odonata) of temperate regions. Because the long-phase species spend a longer time in terrestrial habitats such as grasslands or woodlands during their pre-reproductive phase, we hypothesized that long-phase species would be more sensitive to landscape structure than short-phase species. To test this hypothesis, we conducted periodic censuses of adult dragonflies at small man-made ponds. We compared the two above functional groups in terms of the degree to which species occurrence depended on landscape structure. The difference among the two groups was not significant, but occurrence of long-phase species tended to depend on landscape structure. Long-phase species responded to landscape structure at larger spatial scales and showed stronger spatial autocorrelation in their occurrence among sampling ponds than short-phase species.