Use of DBI in southern South America: first steps in Argentina.

MUZÓN, J; LOZANO, F

Freising

Congreso; 2013 International Congress of Odonatology; 2013

WDA

IMPLEMENTATION OF DBI IN ARGENTINA The Dragonfly Biotic Index (DBI) is a compound index based on three sub-indices: size of geographical distribution, risk of extinction and sensitivity to habitat change, which has proven to be an easy-to-use, low-cost, species level index when assessing ecological integrity, habitat quality and recovery in restoration programs in South Africa (Simaika & Samways 2009). In order to be able to give a DBI score to a given species it is necessary to have detailed information about its distribution area, its threat status based on IUCN Categories and Criteria and its sensitivity to habitat disturbance. This information is readily available in places where the Odonata fauna is well known, which is not the case for most of the Neotropics PROPOSED CHANGES In order to overcome the lack of information related to threat status. We plan to change this sub-index in order to give provisional DBI scores at the national level. Instead of measuring the level of threat we plan to measure the level of protection. This can be achieved by overlapping modeled distribution maps with protected areas recognized in Argentina. Argentina has a network of 39 protected areas which are administered nationally gathering 3.7 million ha, this is almost 7% of the American Continental Argentina (including a section of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego). Apart from this network, there are natural protected areas under provincial jurisdiction, municipal etc. which adds 22 million protected hectares but only 20% of these areas have a degree of protection acceptable or sufficient (which is little more than the network managed by National Parks). Therefore, almost 14% of the total surface of Argentina has an acceptable level of protection. Maps of protected areas are available, so after distribution maps are finished, it is easy to obtain the degree of protection for each species. GENERAL APPLICABILITY OF THE DBI After the DBI scores are finished there is still one problem that needs to be tackled: the used of this index by non-experts in Odonata. This will require the confection of good field guides which will enable scientists and technicians with basic training to be able to identify dragonflies reliably. This is a huge task that will certainly take many years. However, a photographic database is under construction which focuses on particular regions of Argentina: mainly Buenos Aires and Corrientes. Approximately 50% of the species has been photographed in nature. And at least for these areas the field guides are going to be available in the recent future.