Impacts of climate change on dragonflies and damselflies in West and Central Asia

Aim

To project the impact of climate change on dragonfly and damselfly diversity in West and Central Asia.

Location

West and Central Asia.

Time period

1900–2020 data used to predict distributions in 2070 and 2100.

Taxon studied

Odonata.

Methods

Based on 149,001 records, distribution models were created for 159 species using MaxEnt. Environmental variables consisted of climate variables taken from BIOCLIM, river data and soil data. The future climate data were obtained from CHELSA from CMIP6 climate models. The same variables were collected for three scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5) of shared socioeconomic pathways for the years 2050–2070 and 2080–2100. For each scenario and period, diversity maps were prepared for six species groups: all species, Lentic, Lotic, Oriental, Afrotropical and Palaearctic species.

Results

Strong declines in diversity are expected in western Turkey, the Levant and Azerbaijan, and to a lesser extent in parts of Iran and southern Central Asia. An increase is expected in eastern Turkey and at higher elevations in Central Asia with a limited increase throughout the Arabian Peninsula. In contrast to expectations, a decrease in areas with <15 species was found. Faunal composition is predicted to show strong shifts, with Palaearctic species declining and Oriental and Afrotropical species increasing. No clear difference between the trend of lentic and lotic species is found, although there are clear spatial differences in trend between these groups.

Main Conclusions

Climate change will result in strong changes in diversity and distribution of dragonflies and damselflies in West and Central Asia with regional declines and increases. None of the species are predicted to go extinct based on the impact of climate change only, however, the combined impact of climate change and anthropogenic forces is likely to push some of the species to near extinction by 2100.