From: ASSESSMENT OF SPECIES DIVERSITY IN THE MIXEDWOOD PLAINS ECOZONE

DRAGONFLIES AND DAMSELFLIES

P. M. Catling, R. Hutchinson and B. Ménard
Biological Resources Program
Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0C6

Twenty-five years ago, a world expert on dragonflies (who also served as a Director of Research for Agriculture Canada and Chairman of Biology at University of Waterloo), noted that the growing human pressure of agricultural, industrial and urban growth in the Mixedwood Plains ecozone offered "as a prospect in the years to come a significant diminution of the Canadian dragonfly fauna". At the same time he offered the hopeful comment: "When this growth stops - as eventually it must - it is to be hoped that the remaining freshwater habitats will still sustain a diverse and vigorous dragonfly fauna - a reliable, and delightful, indicator of a healthy environment" (Philip S. Corbet in Walker & Corbet 1973, p. ix). .

What has happened over the past 25 years? The following assessment is intended to answer this question. Instead of being an exhaustive review, this is intended to provide an overview and a brief introduction to various aspects of biodiversity based especially on recently published work and referring specifically to the Mixedwood Plains Ecozone of Canada and adjacent areas. Literature and other sources of information are provided to enable the user to go much further. In the cited literature we have favoured recent references that are less available and we have avoided excess by alluding to other extensive sources of literature citations.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

table of contents  |  next page