Jul 7, 2021
(CNN)-As the planet warms, a study found that male dragonflies are losing a crucial feature they typically use to attract female mates: the ornate black patterns on their wings.
The new research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that male dragonflies are adapting to a warming climate by shedding more of their darker wing patterns.
Researchers worry that female species may no longer recognize their male counterparts without their intricate wing patterns and, thus, won't be able to reproduce as temperatures get hotter.
"Our research shows that males and females of these dragonfly species are going to shift in pretty different ways as the climate changes," Michael Moore, lead author of the study and an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told CNN. "These changes are going to happen likely on a much faster timescale than the evolutionary changes in these species have ever occurred before."
Moore and his colleagues analyzed a database of more than 300 dragonfly species across the US, Canada and northern Mexico, and cross-referenced the wing colors of roughly 2,700 individual dragonflies from different species across different locations and climate.
According to a study Moore co-authored in 2019, male dragonflies with darker wing patterns thrive under colder conditions, whereas warmer conditions dramatically reduce their performance. The latest study highlights that male dragonflies adapted to warmer temperatures by evolving less melanin on their wing patterns.
"Evolutionary changes and wing coloration are a really consistent way that dragonflies adapt to their climates," he said. "This got us wondering what the role of evolutionary changes in wing coloration might be as dragonflies respond to the rise in global temperatures."