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Dragonfly ID and Genetics Workshop in Colombia

Dr. John Abbott and Kendra Abbott traveled to Colombia for a Dragonfly ID and Genetics Workshop.
Dr. John Abbott and Kendra Abbott traveled to Colombia for a Dragonfly ID and Genetics Workshop.

From June 16-21, Dr. John Abbott (Director of The University of Alabama Museum’s Research and Collections) and Kendra Abbott (Alabama Museum of Natural History‘s Research and Outreach Coordinator) traveled to Colombia to conduct a Dragonfly ID and Genetics Workshop, as part of the GEODE research project.

Dr. John Abbott demonstrates lab work during his time in Colombia.
Dr. John Abbott demonstrates lab work during his time in Colombia.

On this adventure with them was Brigham Young University, American Museum of Natural History, the University of Florida, and their Colombian colleagues in Bogota and the Dragonfly Society of the Americas.

Dragonflies and their cousins, damselflies (order Odonata), are some of the oldest insects that are still alive today. But despite their ubiquitous nature and broad public appeal, many mysteries remain about dragonfly and damselfly ecology, behavior, and evolutionary history.

To help in that effort, the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded $2.25 million to five institutions to study the long evolution of dragonflies and damselflies.

According to GEODE’s (Genealogy & Ecology of Odonata) website, the project will be collecting and analyze data on the evolutionary relationships, ecological niches, and geographic locations for the approximately 6,200 species of known living and extinct dragonflies and damselflies.

The data will then be used to study which factors drove the diversification of this group over the last 300 million years, including mobility, habitat, niche, color, and distribution.

The four-year grant is awarded by the NSF’s Division of Environmental Biology to Drs. Seth Bybee (BYU)John Abbott (UA)Paul Frandsen (BYU)Rob Guralnick (UF)Vincent Kalkman (Naturalis) and Jessica Ware (AMNH).