Saving the Emerald-eyed Dragon: the strategic habitat conservation approach.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners have embarked on a new era in conservation through the enhanced application of scientific principals and the implementation of adaptive management across large landscapes.

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Though many conservation biology techniques are well understood, less is known about expected population responses to site-specific management actions and large-scale ecological process, such as climate change. Biologists must know specifically what conservation actions are needed, where they are best applied, and how many resources will be required to achieve recovery objectives. The Service calls its new approach to addressing these challenges Strategic Habitat Conservation (SHC).

The Service recently joined with The Nature Conservancy, University of South Dakota, U.S. Forest Service, and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to implement SHC for the endangered Hine's emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora hineana). Signature features of the Hine's emerald dragonfly include its large size (about 3 inches or 7.5 centimeters), large green eyes, and two creamy yellow stripes on its thorax. It is the only dragonfly protected by the Endangered Species Act. The current range of this emerald-eyed dragon is concentrated around the Great Lakes Basin, mostly at select locations in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ontario. It is also found in the Ozark Mountains area of Missouri. The species apparently no longer occurs in Ohio and Indiana. A single specimen is known from Alabama.

The Hine's emerald dragonfly breeds during an approximately six-week period from mid-June through mid-August in shallow, slow-flowing marshes and sedge meadows with thin marl or muck type soils underlain by dolomite bedrock and fed by calcareous groundwater seeps. Eggs are laid in shallow water and hatch the following spring. Hatched larvae inhabit wetlands, especially small spring-fed streamlet channels that flow through the wetlands, for three to five years. The larvae retreat into crayfish burrows in or near the streamlet channels, using them for refuge during times of drought or to overwinter. Mature larvae crawl out of the water onto emergent plants, where they emerge as tenerals (or juvenile dragonflies) and soon mature into adults with the species' distinctive bright green eyes. Adults forage on aerial prey, including small dipterans (flies), near shrubs and forest edges and over meadows, narrow roads, fields, and lakes near potential breeding sites. Males defend the feeding and mating territories, which are adjacent to aquatic habitats, whereas females generally feed over larger areas until they are ready to mate or lay eggs.

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Today, many of the wetland habitats used by the Hine's emerald dragonfly have been mined for limestone. Accelerating residential, agricultural, commercial, and recreational development has reduced the availability and connectivity of breeding, nursery, and feeding habitat. In response, various management activities across the species' range are focused on conserving groundwater supplies, controlling invasive species, and restoring habitat.

We are still learning about the status, distribution, and structure of Hine's emerald dragonfly populations, and about how landscape features and processes relate to dragonfly populations and habitats. The goal of the SHC project is to develop a scalable, landscape-based decision tool that can be used for guiding management actions. Project objectives are to 1) develop and validate landscape-based relationships in order to predict the distribution and occurrence of Hine's emerald dragonflies; 2) assess the size, structure, and genetics of populations across a broad geographical range; 3) evaluate interrelationships among landscape features, microhabitats, and population characteristics; 4) assess the relative importance of habitat characteristics in predicting presence and abundance; 5) apply relationships between habitat and population characteristics to model the potential for areas to support Hine's emerald dragonfly; and 6) evaluate the impacts of climate change on landscape characteristics and management actions, such as efforts to control invasive plant species. Results of this project will be used by managers to identify expected population responses to specific habitat conservation actions, set habitat restoration and protection objectives, and understand why certain actions may be effective in some areas but not others.

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The Hine's emerald dragonfly SHC project began this year. It is receiving funding and technical assistance from the Service's Coastal Program--Great Lakes, Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, and Endangered Species Program, as well as a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. We look forward to learning how to better manage and protect this emerald eyed-dragon of our wetlands.

Both authors are fish and wildlife biologists in the Service's Green Bay, Wisconsin, Ecological Services Office. Darin Simpkins can be reached at [e-mail] or 920-866-1739, and Catherine Carnes can be reached at [e-mail] or 920-866-1732.