PARENT SESSION
Oral Session # 73: Invasive Species VI: Terrestrial.
Presiding: S DeWalt
Thursday, August 7. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, SITCC Meeting Room 204.

Ecology of exotic dragonfly species in different native assemblages.

Rose, Joshua^*,1, ¹ Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

ABSTRACT- To determine whether exotic species express the same ecology under different ecological contexts or whether these contexts alter their ecology, the ecological niches of dragonfly species were quantified in three bioregions: the Everglades of south Florida, the Lower Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, and the main islands of the Hawaiian archipelago. Florida and Texas each possess many more species of dragonflies than Hawai'i, and have many more types of predators and prey as well. Some dragonfly species are indigenous to all three regions, but most to one or two; a few species occur as nonnatives in two regions, or are native in one but have invaded another. Several species in Texas appear to use shaded and dry habitats more extensively than conspecifics in Florida. In Hawai'i neither indigenous nor exotic species appear to express wider niches than their conspecifics in Texas and Florida, nor is niche overlap among species in Hawai'i perceptibly lower. However, populations of some species do appear to express different ecological niches between two or three of these regions. Nonnative species occur predominantly in altered or artificial habitats in Florida and Hawai'i; Texas has only one invading species, which occurs in apparently undisturbed habitat.

Key words: nonnative, anisoptera , exotic, community