2. Annual Summaries

Year 1: 2000

In the 2000 field season, inventory was concentrated around around Prince George and the regions east and south of the city, that is, the western slopes of the Rockies from Tête Jaune Cache north to Pine Pass, south to the northeastern Chilcotin Plateau (Nazko area) and the northern Cariboo Mountains (Likely, Quesnel Lake). Sporadic collecting also occurred along Highway 20 to the eastern boundary of Tweedsmuir Park. Rob Cannings and Leah Ramsay each visited the study area twice, and Syd Cannings made one trip, for a total of 39 days in the field by the principal biologists. Sid Dunkle (Plano, Texas), one of the leading dragonfly biologists in North America, joined Syd Cannings for part of his trip. Five additional provincial government biologists were temporarily assigned to this project, and contributed about 29 days total. Three biologists were contracted to search for and collect dragonflies: Gina Roberts surveyed the Horsefly Forest District, Crispin Guppy surveyed the Quesnel Forest District, and Gordon Hutchings surveyed the southern portion of the Prince George Forest District. Pamela Hengeveld was hired to visit major sample sites and describe the habitat in detail, and Will MacKenzie, the provincial wetlands ecosystem specialist, spent three days with us, training us in the provincial wetlands classification scheme.

Two hundred fifty-six sites were visited at least once. Approximately 4000 adult and 300 larval specimens of at least 51 species were collected. Fifty-eight species were known from the region before the start of the project; four species new to the region were discovered in 2000. These additions were Amphiagrion abbreviatum, Aeshna tuberculifera, Epitheca spinigera, and Somatochlora brevicincta. The latter is new to the provincial list as well; this was the "range extension of the year" according to the newsletter of the Dragonfly Society of the Americas. Somatochlora brevicincta is a very rare species previously known only from a handful of localities in the world, all from central Quebec, the Atlantic Provinces and Maine; it was found at four sites: three on the wet windward slopes of the Rockies and one in the Cariboo Mountains near McBride.

Rob Cannings visited Prince George in June and gave an evening presentation on dragonfly biology and identification, followed by a day-long field workshop to those who had expressed enthusiasm in developing their inventory skills. A total of 12 professional biologists, dragonfly specialists and local naturalists from Williams Lake, McBride, Prince George, Mackenzie, and Burns Lake volunteered their services. We were especially fortunate to secure the participation of Sid Dunkle (Texas) (11 days) and Dennis Paulson (Washington State) (1 day), two of the leading dragonfly experts in North America.

Publications. A popular article on the discovery of the Quebec Emerald is posted on the Conservation Data Centre website and was published in the Entomological Society of BC's newsletter Boreus (Cannings 2000). Rex Kenner reported the first record of Somatochlora kennedyi in BC (Kenner 2000) and the original description of the larva of Leucorrhinia patricia, based on collections from northern BC and the Yukon, was published (Kenner et al. 2000). The final web report of the Columbia Basin dragonfly survey (Cannings et al. 2000), which describes many of the same aspects of dragonfly inventory found in the northern inventories, was produced; it is on the internet at http://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/cbasin/www_dragon/toc.html.