Recapture rates and habitat associations of White-faced Darter Leucorhinnia dubia on Fenn's and Whixall Moss, Shropshire, UK

Abstract

Land-use change and habitat loss are important drivers of biodiversity decline at both global and local scales. To protect species from the impacts of land-use change it is important to understand the population dynamics and habitat associations across these scales. Here we present an investigation into the survival and habitat preferences of Leucorrhinia dubia at the local scale at Fenn’s and Whixall Moss, Shropshire, UK. We used mark-release-recapture methods to investigate survival and used sightings of individual dragonflies along with habitat data to investigate habitat preference. We found that survival between capture-visits was very low and that L. dubia showed a clear preference for the open moss habitat on this site. In both cases, we found that the detectability, either through sightings or recaptures, was potentially very low and suggest that this should be taken into account in future analyses. We suggest that by encouraging recorders to submit complete lists and to repeat visits to sites detectability could be easily estimated for dragonfly species and incorporating this into analyses would improve estimates fo population trends and habitat associations.