Structure and dynamics of odonate communities: Accessing habitat, responding to risk, and enabling reproduction

This chapter highlights the key abiotic and community-level interactions that influence odonate community structure. Three important life-history based issues central to odonate communities are developed: habitat access, response to risk during the larval stage, and emergence and reproduction. Each issue is addressed by considering relevant ecological theory and identifying and reviewing empirical studies with odonates that address hypotheses raised by theoretical studies. Although numerous short-term studies at relatively small spatial scales have been conducted with odonate larvae, very little is known about the relative impacts of competition, cannibalism, predation, intraguild predation and size structure on odonate population dynamics, and community structure in natural systems. Longterm studies at multiple life history stages and levels of organization are required to generate a more complete understanding of odonate communities, and ecological communities in general.