Bruce Experiences: Finding Dragons in the Amazon with Dr. Jessica Ware

Dragonflies and damselflies, representing the insect order Odonata, are among the earliest flying insects with living (extant) representatives. Getting the insects needed for phylogenetic work requires extensive global fieldwork, and I will discuss the state of dragonfly and damselfly biodiversity analyses in the Amazon region. Unraveling details of their long evolutionary history, such as egg-laying (oviposition) strategies, is impeded by unresolved phylogenetic relationships, an issue particularly prevalent in damselfly families and fossil lineages. I present the first transcriptome-based and AHE-based phylogenetic reconstructions of Odonata representing nearly all of the order’s families (except Austropetaliidae and Neopetaliidae).