Source: https://science.naturalis.nl/en/people/scientists/klaas-douwe-dijkstra/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 20:01:39+00:00

Document:
Every lake or river is like an island in a sea of land, and so each species community develops in isolation, leading to unique biodiversity: while freshwaters cover only 1% of Earth, they harbor 10% of known animal species, over 80% of which are insects like dragonflies. As each water body is like an island, a single impact (e.g. dam or mine spill) can wipe out an irreplaceable ecosystem. Freshwater is thus our most threatened environment: 32% of species are thought to be at risk of extinction compared with 24% on land.
Expanding expertise of emerging flagship groups opens new frontiers in the research, conservation and appreciation of nature. Dragonflies and damselflies are underused to enhance biodiversity knowledge and awareness despite their broad potential and appeal: their beauty gives threatened freshwaters a face, their sensitivity a gauge. My expertise and network are built on a long-term and multi-purpose focus on these insects. Nature, natural history and the archives they form together are all under pressure: now is the time to explore, document and understand biodiversity.
My mission is to make dragonflies ‘the new birds’: the first insect order to break 'the vertebrate frontier' and attain universal familiarity and application in science, conservation, and public interest.
We are developing Odonata for freshwater assessment across Africa while training local researchers with support of the JRS Biodiversity Foundation, providing free access to the biotic value, ecology, distribution and identification of all 770 species via ADDO African Dragonflies & Damselflies Online. Data extent and detail may well be unsurpassed by any insect and most animal groups. AFRESH1, the first African Freshwater Entomology Workshop, at Midmar in South Africa in February 2016 hosted 69 aquatic entomologists representing 21 African countries. The Midmar Memorandum identifies priorities for freshwater biodiversity research and conservation in Africa.
I spent over 1000 field days in 20 African countries to obtain material and 4260 barcode sequences of 585 species and named 78 as new, of which 60 new dragonfly species in one paper, the greatest number of Odonata at once in about a century, adding 1 to every 12 known in Africa. None are cryptic!
Odonata and the unprecedented African dataset offer great potential for evolutionary and global change research, as most groups applied in conservation and research poorly represent the most dense, threatened and responsive biodiversity: tied to water, but able to fly. No birds or butterflies are born from water, no frogs or fish are airborne, but dragonflies are both!
The first synthesis of aquatic insect diversity evolution for Annual Review of Entomology provides a blueprint for further study of ‘freshwater fliers’. I also led the first globally agreed classification of Odonata and most complete molecular phylogeny to date with the Damselfly Workers at Naturalis (DAWN).
I authored the European dragonfly field guide in 2006, which has become the most successful publication on Odonata to date with 35,000 copies in five languages, and in 2014 published the handbook of eastern African dragonflies, the order's first species-level treatise for a tropical continent.
As a long-time member of the IUCN Dragonfly Specialist Group, I contributed to the first global estimate of extinction risk in insects, as well as the first complete Red List for a tropical continent. The latter rests on my 45 taxonomic and faunistic publications of African Odonata.
Parallel to the genomic era of comprehensive organismal data, we live in a biotic age in which exhaustive geographic, ecological and genetic data allow us to analyze complete biota. Freshwater may have the most dense and most sensitive species richness on the planet and Africa is the most changeable tropical continent. Dragonflies and damselflies are known well enough to assess the evolutionary impact of past environmental change, and to predict and monitor future changes for conservation, from community to continental and even global scales.
What can the rise and survival of the thousands of Odonata species say about the origin and future of biodiversity? How can this knowledge and these species be applied in conservation? And how can the species be identified?
The best-known tropical insect order?
Knowledge of African Odonata is unparalleled in geographic breadth, genetic resolution and ecological detail. The maps show species diversity (colours) and distribution of 127,000 available records (all symbols). I described 10% and recorded 80% of all 770 species (dark symbols), obtained over 5000 molecular samples, and revised all 500 (65%) for the eastern African handbook (grey). Species’ habitats can be inferred from niche models (e.g. altitude, rainfall) and 27 attributes (e.g. shade, flow, substrate) obtained from experts’ field experience; extinction risks were estimated using IUCN Red List criteria.
Odonata are rather uniform in reproductive and feeding ecology, but vary greatly in their sensitivity to environmental impacts. Africa’s geographic template is extensive but barely divided, yet while Odonata seem unlimited in their potential to disperse and interbreed, the species are great in number. Data on the distribution, habitat requirements, genetic diversity, evolutionary relationships and morphology is accessible for all 770 African species (see above). This allows the first quantification of the net effect of environmental, ecological and evolutionary forces at such an extent and detail, on such responsive biodiversity, and across such a dynamic continent. This is of great interest in the context of both human evolution and man-made change: while landscapes are still relatively pristine in Africa, economic and population growth is also unrivalled, and further impacts will be greater here than anywhere else, the unpredictable climate becoming even more extreme.
Phylogenetic exploration of 75% of 670 genera at Naturalis and with Prof Michael May and Dr Jessica Ware (Rutgers, New Jersey) will be combined with an anchored hybrid enrichment approach of at least 500 genes and transcriptome data for over 80 taxa with Prof Seth Bybee (Brigham Young, Utah) to obtain a global phylogenetic backbone for color (vision) evolution in Odonata.
The JRS Biodiversity Foundation project that includes the African Dragonfly Biotic Index (ADBI), African Dragonflies and Damselflies Online (ADDO) and the African Freshwater Entomology Workshops (AFRESH) are a collaboration with Prof Michael Samways (Stellenbosch), Prof Les Underhill (Cape Town) and Dr Helen James (Rhodes) in South Africa.
I amassed the foremost collection of African Odonata in Leiden and reviewed important historical collections (Tervuren, Bulawayo, Nairobi).
As the former curator of the zoological collection at the University of Suriname (NZCS), I initiated collaboration with Naturalis with development aid from the Dutch Foreign Ministry: we alleviated knowledge poverty on one of the nation’s greatest assets by repatriating biodiversity expertise in the form of collection databases and popular handbooks on butterflies, fish and amphibians.
Invited lecturer at universities from Angola to Taiwan and The Netherlands, and for the Tropical Biology Association in Tanzania, Madagascar and Uganda.
Participant of Conservation International’s rapid assessments in DR Congo, Liberia and Ghana, and Congo Biodiversity Initiative’s two-month Congo 2010 expedition.
Conservation consultant to A Rocha, Arcelor Mittal, Birdlife/RSPB, Frankfurt Zoological Society, and Millennium Challenge Corporation.
Comment in Nature magazine "Restore our sense of species"
Lead author on 77%, including 36% as sole author. Total citations are 2247, of which 1372 in the last five years, and 551 for best-cited work, the field guide to European Odonata. H-index: 19 (Google Scholar Citations - 29 June 2017).
Newsletters, presentations and posters are excluded. Titles between square brackets were published in Dutch.
The fieldguide to European Odonata in English (sample), French, Dutch, German and Spanish may be the most successful publication on dragonflies to date, with 35,000 copies printed since 2006. A handbook for over 500 species occurring from Sudan through eastern DRC to Mozambique (65% of the African fauna) that appeared in 2014 is the first species-level handbook for a tropical continent. I was also co-editor and co-author of the handbook of Dutch Odonata.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & V. Clausnitzer, 2014. The Dragonflies and Damselflies of Eastern Africa: handbook for all Odonata from Sudan to Zimbabwe. Studies in Afrotropical Zoology 298: 1-260.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & R. Lewington, 2014. Guía de campo de las libélulas de España y de Europa. Ediciones Omega. 1-320.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & R. Lewington, 2014. Feldführer für die Libellen Europas. Haupt-Verlag. 1-320.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & R. Lewington, 2008. Libellen van Europa: veldgids met alle libellen tussen Noordpool en Sahara. Tirion Uitgevers. 1-320.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & R. Lewington, 2007. Guide des Libellules de France et d'Europe.Delachaux & Niestle. 1-320.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & R. Lewington, 2006. Field guide to the Dragonflies of Britain and Europe. British Wildlife Publishing. 1-320.
NVL (Editors: Dijkstra, K.-D.B., V.J. Kalkman, R. Ketelaar & M.J.T. van der Weide), 2002. [The Dutch dragonflies (Odonata)]. Nederlandse Fauna 4. Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum Naturalis, KNNV Uitgeverij & European Invertebrate Survey-Nederland. 1-440.
- Dijkstra, K.-D.B. [Morphology and development]. 11-20.
- Dingemanse, N.J., K.-D.B. Dijkstra, D. Groenendijk & R. Ketelaar. [Phenology]. 21-26.
- Bos, F., K.-D.B. Dijkstra, J.T. Hermans & D. Groenendijk. [Ecology and behaviour]. 27-42.
- Dijkstra, K.-D.B. [Diversity and nomenclature]. 43-60.
- Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & W.-J. Hoeffnagel. Aeshna grandis. 236-238.
- Delft, J. van & K.-D.B. Dijkstra. Sympetrum flaveolum. 361-364.
- Dijkstra, K.-D.B. Sympetrum fonscolombii. 365-368.
- Delft, J. van & K.-D.B. Dijkstra. Sympetrum sanguineum. 374-376.
- Dijkstra, K.-D.B. Sympetrum striolatum. 377-379.
- Dijkstra, K.-D.B. Sympetrum vulgatum. 380-382.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. Taxonomy: use the red list as a registry. Nature 546: 599-600.
Kipping, J., V. Clausnitzer, S.R.F. Fernandes Elizalde & K.-D.B. Dijkstra. The dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata) of Angola. African Invertebrates 58: 65-91.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. Restore our sense of species. Nature 533: 172-174.
Di Domenico, M., K.-D.B. Dijkstra & G. Carchini. Redescription of the larva of Gynacantha cylindrata Karsch (Insecta: Odonata: Aeshnidae). Zootaxa 4078: 78-83.
Mens, L.P., K. Schütte, F.R. Stokvis & K.-D.B. Dijkstra. Six, not two, species of Acisoma pintail dragonfly (Odonata: Libellulidae). Zootaxa 4109: 153-172.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., N. Mézière & J. Kipping. Sixty new dragonfly and damselfly species from Africa (Odonata). Odonatologica 44: 447-678.
Garrison, R.W., K.-D.B. Dijkstra, M. Hämälainen & R.J. Villanueva. Mitragomphus ganzanus Needham, 1944, a geographically misplaced dragonfly, is a junior synonym of Gomphidia kirschii Selys, 1878 (Odonata: Gomphidae). Zootaxa 3911: 280-286.
Suhling, F., G. Sahlén, S. Gorb, V.J. Kalkman, K-D.B. Dijkstra & J. van Tol. Order Odonata. In: Thorp, J., Rogers, D.C. (Editors). Ecology and General Biology: Thorp and Covich’s Freshwater Invertebrates. Academic Press. 893–932.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., M.T. Monaghan & S.U. Pauls. Freshwater Biodiversity and Aquatic Insect Diversification. Annual Review of Entomology 59: 143-163.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., V.J. Kalkman, R.A. Dow, F.R. Stokvis & J. van Tol. Redefining the damselfly families: a comprehensive molecular phylogeny of Zygoptera (Odonata). Systematic Entomology 39: 68-96.
Vilenica, M., & K.-D.B. Dijkstra. The dragonfly (Insecta, Odonata) fauna of the Banovina region, Croatia. Natura Croatica 23: 45-66.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. Three new genera of damselflies (Odonata: Chlorocyphidae, Platycnemididae). International Journal of Odonatology 16: 269-274.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., G. Bechly, S.M. Bybee, R.A. Dow, H.J. Dumont, G. Fleck, R.W. Garrison, M. Hämäläinen, V.J. Kalkman, H. Karube, M.L. May, A.G. Orr, D. Paulson, A.C. Rehn, G. Theischinger, J.W.H. Trueman, J. van Tol, N. von Ellenrieder & J. Ware. The classification and diversity of dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata). In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Editor). Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness. Zootaxa 3730: 36-45.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., & V.J. Kalkman. The ‘African’ genus Argiagrion is a Brazilian Leptagrion species and the ‘Philippine’ Moroagrion a European Pyrrhosoma (Odonata: Coenagrionidae). International Journal of Odonatology 16: 189-191.
Outomuro, D., K.-D.B. Dijkstra & F. Johansson. Habitat variation and wing coloration affect wing shape evolution in dragonflies. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 26: 1866-1874.
Simaika, J.P., M.J. Samways, J. Kipping, F. Suhling, K.-D.B. Dijkstra, V. Clausnitzer, J.-P. Boudot & S. Domisch. Continental-scale conservation prioritization of African dragonflies. Biological Conservation 157: 245-254.
Clausnitzer, V., K.-D.B. Dijkstra, R. Koch, J.-P. Boudot, W.R.T. Darwall, J. Kipping, B. Samraoui, M.J. Samways, J.P. Simaika & F. Suhling. Focus on African Freshwaters: hotspots of dragonfly diversity and conservation concern. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10: 129-134.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & V.J. Kalkman. Phylogeny, classification and taxonomy of European dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata): a review. Organisms Diversity & Evolution 12: 209-227.
Clausnitzer, V., K.-D.B. Dijkstra & J. Kipping. Globally threatened dragonflies (Odonata) in Eastern Africa and implications for conservation. Journal of East African Natural History 100: 89-111.
Darwall, W.R.T., R.A. Holland, K.G. Smith, D.J. Allen, E.G.E. Brooks, V. Katarya, C.M. Pollock, Y. Shi, V. Clausnitzer, N. Cumberlidge, A. Cuttelod, K.-D.B. Dijkstra, M.D. Diop, N. García, M.B. Seddon, P.H. Skelton, J. Snoeks, D. Tweddle & J.-C. Vié. Implications of bias in conservation research and investment for freshwater species. Conservation Letters 4: 474-482.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., V. Clausnitzer, N. Mézière, J. Kipping & K. Schütte. The status and distribution of dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata) in central Africa. In: Brooks, E.G.E., W.R.T. Darwall & D.J. Allen (Editors). The Status and Distribution of Freshwater Biodiversity in Central Africa. IUCN. 62-76.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & J.-P. Boudot. First update of the Atlas of the Odonata of the Mediterranean and North Africa: Orthetrum machadoi new to the Palaearctic and Agriocnemis sania new to the Egyptian Nile Valley. Libellula 29: 107-125.
Clausnitzer, V., V.J. Kalkman, M. Ram, B. Collen, J.E.M. Baillie, M. Bedjanič, W.R.T. Darwall,K.-D.B. Dijkstra, R.A. Dow, J. Hawking, H. Karube, E. Malikova, D. Paulson, K. Schütte, F. Suhling, R.J. Villanueva, N. von Ellenrieder & K. Wilson. Odonata enter the biodiversity crisis debate: the first global assessment of an insect group. Biological Conservation 142: 1864-1869.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. Dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata) of the Lower Malagarasi Basin, western Tanzania. In: Malagarasi Aquatic Rapid Biodiversity Assessment. Mott MacDonald. 53-60 (report), 98-104 (appendix).
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., & N. Matushkina. Kindred spirits: “Brachythemis leucosticta”, Africa’s most familiar dragonfly, consists of two species (Odonata: Libellulidae). International Journal of Odonatology 12: 237-256.
Ottema, O.H., S. Ramcharan, P. Ouboter, F. Chin-Joe & K.-D.B. Dijkstra. Four bird species new to Surinam. Cotinga 31: 140-141.
Finch, B., T.M. Butynski & K.-D.B. Dijkstra. A rapid survey of the avifauna of Lokutu. In: T.M. Butynski & J. McCullough (Editors). A rapid biological assessment of Lokutu, Democratic Republic of Congo. RAP Bulletin of biological assessment 46: 42-46 (report), 66-81 (appendices).
Melo, M., R. Covas & K.-D. Dijkstra. First records of Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla for Mozambique. Bulletin of the African Bird Club 13: 80-81.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., A. Branson & R. Lewington. A proposal for European standard names for the Odonata of Europe, Turkey and north-west Africa. Atropos 25: 37-43.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. Comment on the proposed conservation of usage of the specific names ofLibellula aenea Linnaeus, 1758 (currently Cordulia aenea) and L. flavomaculata Vander Linden, 1825 (currently Somatochlora flavomaculata; Insecta, Odonata) by the replacement of the lectotype of L. aenea with a newly designated lectotype. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 61: 110.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & G. Balyesiima. First record of Orange-cheeked Waxbill Estrilda melpodain East Africa. Scopus 24: 50.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. & V.J. Kalkman. [An odonatological excursion to the southern Netherlands, half a century later]. Entomologische Berichten 64: 157-161.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. [Gone with the Wind: Dragonflies in the dunes]. In: van der Bent, G., G. van Ommering & R. van Rossum (Editors). [Through the dunes: an exploration from The Hague to Noordwijk]. Van Den Berg Kantoorboekhandel. 185-186.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. Odonata (Dragonflies). In: Nagorskaya, L., M. Moroz, T. Laenko, V. Veznovetz, H. Moller Pillot, K.-D.B. Dijkstra & M. Reemer (Editors). Macrofauna in floodplain pools and dead branches of the Pripyat River, Belarus. RIZA werkdocument 2003 155x: 78-84.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B. [Dragonflies in the dunes]. Duin 24: 22-24.
Evans, D.J. & K.-D.B. Dijkstra, 1993. The birds of Gezira, Egypt. Ornithological Society of the Middle East Bulletin 30: 20-25.
Edelaar, P., K.-D.B. Dijkstra & N.J. Dingemanse, 1996. Hemianax ephippiger: a new dragonfly for The Netherlands (Odonata: Aeshnidae). Entomologische Berichten 56: 192-195.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., 1997a. New records of Libellula fulva (Müll.) for Portugal (Anisoptera: Libellulidae). Notulae Odonatologicae 4: 160.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., 1997b. Striated Heron Butorides striatus breeding in the Egyptian Nile Valley. Sandgrouse 19: 140.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., 1998. [Dragonflies in Berkheide and the Coepelduynen 1995-1997, three years of observation between Katwijk and Wassenaar]. Holland's Duinen 32: 7-28.
Dijkstra, K.-D.B., 1999. [Dragonflies in Berkheide and De Klip 1998]. Holland's Duinen 34: 19-41.

References: V. 
 V. 
 V. 
 V. 
 V. 
 V. 
 V.