Conservation in Hine’s sight: the conservation genetics of the federally endangered Hine’s emerald dragonfly, Somatochlora hineana

Hine’s emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora hineana) is distributed in discrete fen and wet meadow habitats over its range from Ontario, Canada, to Missouri, USA. Habitat destruction in the vicinity of Chicago, IL, and other areas lead to its designation as an US federal endangered species in 1995. Our main goal was to delineate the population genetic structure of the species within the northern recovery unit centered on the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin and the southern recovery unit in the Des Plaines River Valley near Chicago, IL. Sites on the Door Peninsula, WI, are in a matrix of agricultural development and second-growth forest and were used as a best available approximation of a pristine system for the dragonfly. We nondestructively sampled 557 adults and larvae from 16 sites in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin from 2008 through 2011 and used ten microsatellite markers to estimate levels of genetic variability, and genetic structure. Mean allelic richness across all sites and years was 5.03 (±0.64) and expected heterozygosity was 0.52 (±0.032). Northern and southern recovery units as designated in the original recovery plan were genetically distinct. We delineated two genetic populations in the northern unit and three within the southern including two disjunct sites.