Distribution of species richness of the odonates (Insecta: Odonata) of the Dominican Republic: An update from collection specimens

Abstract

Scientific collections are important biodiversity records, as is the one from the Instituto de Investigaciones Botánicas y Zoológicas (IIBZ) from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo in Dominican Republic. They provide a partial but useful view of the common occurrence localities and information gaps of specific groups of organisms. Presented in this paper are a list of species and an occurrence map of adult odonate specimens represented in the collection from the IIBZ; a comparison of them with reports from previous works was performed. Of the 67 species currently reported in the Dominican Republic, 63 were found in the collection. Regarding previous works, species richness increased in some provinces, such was the case in Distrito Nacional, where it increased from 44 to 51. A correlation analysis examined the association between numeric richness and the drainage density, annual precipitation and surface area of the province; none of the correlations yielded significant results. Additionally, linear mixed effect models were generated, using the mentioned variables as fixed effect and a qualitative variable related to accessibility and population density as random effect. All the models found that a substantial percentage of the variance of the numeric richness is explained by the random effect variable, which means the accessibility conditions the species’ occurrence, suggesting a sampling bias exists. From this arises the need of collecting specimens in regions with few records to better comprehend the distribution of odonates in the country.