1st International and 10th National Iranian Conference on Bioinformatics

Generalized dissimilarity models as a tool to predict Odonata assemblages species composition

Paper ID : 1265-ICB10

Authors:

Zohreh Eslami-Barzoki *¹, Mehregan Ebrahimi², Saber Sadeghi¹

¹شیراز، دانشگاه شیراز، دانشکده علوم، گروه زیست شناسی

²شیراز، دانشگاه شیراز، دانشکده علوم ، گروه زیست شناسی

Abstract:

Central Iran is considered one of the most water-stressed regions of the Central Plateau of Iran. In recent years a combination of climate change, population growth, and economic development is placing enormous stress on freshwater ecosystems of this area [1]. Thus the quality and quantity of freshwater habitats are declining and freshwater biodiversity is threatened. However, information about the diversity patterns of freshwater species and drivers of these patterns is scarce [2]. Therefore assessing the effects of anthropogenic environmental alterations would be challenging. One way to overcome this challenge is to use statistical and modelling techniques. By using these techniques we can estimate species assemblages across a less explored region by extrapolating the results of a few surveys conducted in that region. Results of such analysis will have the best chance of being effectively used in conservation decision-making if it is done for flagship taxa like Odonata [3]. Generalized dissimilarity modelling (GDM) is a statistical approach that uses the pairwise dissimilarity of surveyed localities to fit a model predicting the biological distance between any given pair of localities as a multivariate non-linear function of differences in the environmental characteristics of those localities [4]. In this study, we used data of 41 water bodies surveyed regarding Odonata species in Central Iran (Qom and Esfahan provinces). We perform GDM using the R package gdm [5] to extrapolate species assemblage composition in areas where the species composition data was not available. GDM provided a map that clusters the predicted communities into a discrete set of communities with a common profile. It shows how Odonata communities are structured along the altitudinal gradient of Central Iran in terms of their species composition. We can use this map for priority conservation planning and to suggest the best distribution of potential locations for conducting future field surveys.

Keywords:

Arid and semi-arid; Dragonflies; GDM, Extrapolation; Ecological Modelling

Status : Paper Accepted (Poster Presentation)