Melissa Sánchez Herrera

University of Alabama | UA · Museum

Basal metabolic rates (BMRs) increase with temperature and body mass. Environmental temperatures rapidly change in tropical mountains due to elevation (macro scale) and vegetation structure (micro scale). Thus, tropical mountains are good settings for testing the effects of temperature on BMRs. We measured the BMRs at four temperature ranges on six...

Colombian odonatological history was scarce until two decades ago. Here, we present an updated, thoroughly vetted, and refined checklist of taxonomic and geographical records of Colombian odonates, built upon the previous publication in 2011. To achieve this, we conducted an extensive literature review, and curated the most representative biologica...

Insect monitoring is pivotal for assessing biodiversity and informing conservation strategies. This study delves into the complex realm of insect monitoring in the Global South—world developing and least-developed countries as identified by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development—highlighting challenges and proposing strategic soluti...

The traditional method of classifying the twenty-one species within the South American genus Polythore has been relying on wing color patterns and male genital ligula shape. However, recent molecular research has shown that wing color patterns can vary significantly within some species, making it an insufficient means of species diagnosis by itself...

Heliconius butterflies are an ideal organism for studying ecology, behavior, adaptation, and speciation. These butterflies can be found in various locations and habitats in Central and South America, where they encounter and interact with different sources of pollen, nectar, and host plants. However, there is limited knowledge on how geographic and...

In recent decades, a lack of available knowledge about the magnitude, identity and distribution of biodiversity has given way to a taxonomic impediment where species are not being described as fast as the rate of extinction. Using Machine Learning methods based on seven different algorithms (LR, CART, KNN, GNB, LDA, SVM and RFC) we have created an...

This research-level text documents the latest advances in odonate biology and relates these to a broader ecological and evolutionary research agenda. Despite being one of the smallest insect orders, dragonflies offer a number of advantages for both laboratory and field studies. In fact, they continue to make a crucial contribution to the advancemen...

This research-level text documents the latest advances in odonate biology and relates these to a broader ecological and evolutionary research agenda. Despite being one of the smallest insect orders, dragonflies offer a number of advantages for both laboratory and field studies. In fact, they continue to make a crucial contribution to the advancemen...

The damselflies Hetaerininae, a subfamily of Calopterygidae, comprise four genera distributed from North to South America: Hetaerina, Mnesarete, Ormenophlebia and Bryoplathanon. While several studies have focused on the intriguing behavioral and morphological modifications within Hetaerina, little of the evolutionary history of the group is well un...

Here, we investigate the evolutionary history of five northern dragonfly species to evaluate what role the last glaciation period may have played in their current distributions. We look at the population structure and estimate divergence times for populations of the following species: Aeshna juncea (Linnaeus), Aeshna subarctica Walker, Sympetrum da...

Two new species of the damselfly genus Archaeopodagrion, A. recurvatum sp. nov. and A. mayi sp. nov., are described from the confluence of the Tropical Andes and the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena biodiversity hot-spots. Adults differ from the other known species in the shape of female posterior lobe of pronotum and male structures of cerci and paraprocts;...

Dragonflies and damselflies are a charismatic, medium-sized insect order (∼6300 species) with a unique potential to approach comparative research questions. Their taxonomy and many ecological traits for a large fraction of extant species are relatively well understood. However, until now, the lack of a large-scale phylogeny based on high throughput...

The biodiversity of the tropical Americas is a consequence of the interplay between geological and climatic events, with the Andean uplift being a major driver of speciation. Multiple studies have shown that species diversification promoted by the Andes can occur in the presence or absence of gene flow. However, to date, the majority of research ad...

Background: The New World Tropics has experienced a dynamic landscape across evolutionary history and harbors a high diversity of flora and fauna. While there are some studies addressing diversification in Neotropical vertebrates and plants, there is still a lack of knowledge in arthropods. Here we examine temporal and spatial diversification patt...

Background: The New World Tropics has experienced a dynamic landscape across evolutionary history and harbors a high diversity of flora and fauna. While there are some studies addressing diversification in Neotropical vertebrates and plants, there is still a lack of knowledge in arthropods. Here we examine temporal and spatial diversification patte...

Background: The New World Tropics has experienced a dynamic landscape across evolutionary history and harbors a high diversity of flora and fauna. While there are some studies addressing diversification in Neotropical vertebrates and plants, there is still a lack of knowledge in arthropods. Here we examine temporal and spatial diversification patte...

Background: The New World Tropics has experienced a dynamic landscape across evolutionary history and harbors a high diversity of flora and fauna. While there are some studies addressing diversification in Neotropical vertebrates and plants, there is still a lack of knowledge in arthropods. Here we examine temporal and spatial diversification patte...

Triatomines are the vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease. Although Triatoma and Rhodnius are the most-studied vector genera, other triatomines, such as Panstrongylus, also transmit T. cruzi, creating new epidemiological scenarios. Panstrongylus has at least 13 reported species but there is limited information about...

Dung beetles of the subfamily Scarabaeinae are widely recognised as important providers of multiple ecosystem services and are currently experiencing revisions that have improved our understanding of higher-level relationships in the subfamily. However, the study of phylogenetic relationships at the level of genus or species is still lagging behind...

Background Sorting out the biogeographical history of species in the New World Tropics is challenging. We here examine the roles of evolution and biogeography in driving the distribution and diversification of the damselflies of the family Polythoridae. This family comprises seven genera with a total of 57 species, distributed across much of Centra...

Survival and longevity in neotropical damselflies (Odonata, Polythoridae). Longevity among insect orders varies greatly, and has mainly been studied in insects in temperate biomes, where seasonality determines high synchronization of reproductive activities and limits lifespan. Most forest damselflies in tropical regions have low population densiti...

Dragonfly wings are subject to various selection pressures. Wing morphology is largely shaped by intra-, intersexual and natural selection. Territoriality, courtship displays, different kinds of mating systems, seasonal migrations, foraging behavior and other aspects of dragonfly life history and behavior all require specific functional traits of t...

Colombia is one of the megadiverse countries in the world, but paradoxically it is one of the less explored. The recent red list assessments show the country has the highest number of endangered species in the Neotropical region. Nevertheless, the sampling effort is low especially in protected areas, which probably can harbor some of the rare speci...

The N eotropics are a hotspot of global diversity for many groups of organisms, including the dragonflies and damselflies ( I nsecta: O donata). While the number of biodiversity surveys and new species descriptions for N eotropical odonates is increasing, diversity in this region is still under‐explored, and very few studies have looked at the gene...

The study of island fauna has greatly informed our understanding of the evolution of diversity. We here examine the phylogenetics, biogeography, and diversification of the damselfly genera Nesobasis and Melanesobasis, endemic to the Fiji Islands, to explore mechanisms of speciation in these highly speciose groups. Using mitochondrial (COI, 12S) and...

Species identification underlies biological studies, informs management and conservation, and connects people with the natural world around them, but it’s not always easy. New, game-changing smartphone “apps” like LeafSnap and Merlin Bird ID have made this task easier than ever, and the machine learning systems that power them have the potential to...

Life in extreme habitats offers challenges — for example — in feeding, respiration, attachment or thermoregulation. The larvae of the damselflies of family Polythoridae are a paragon of this because they live in and around waterfalls in the Neotropics, where fast-flowing turbulent waters bring high oxygen concentrations and a ready food supply, but...

The study of color polymorphisms (CP) has provided profound insights into the maintenance of genetic variation in natural populations. We here offer the first evidence for an elaborate wing polymorphism in the Neotropical damselfly genus Polythore, which consists of 21 described species, distributed along the eastern slopes of the Andes in South Am...

The dragonfly family Petaluridae is a relict group with eleven extant species, distributed in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Chile and the Pacific Northwest and Appalachian regions in North America. These species have ecologies quite different from other dragonflies: their aquatic larval stage lives in flooded burrows in fens, often at high elevati...

Aim To explore the phylogenetics and historical biogeography of the dragonfly family Petaluridae (known as ‘petaltails’), a relict dragonfly group with unique habitat and life history attributes. Location Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Chile and North America. Methods Using five mitochondrial and three nuclear gene fragments we recovered garli ‐...

Inland waters cover <1% of Earth’s surface, yet harbor 10% of all animal species, >60% of which are insects. Odonata is the fourth-largest aquatic insect radiation and second-largest exclusively aquatic order. Due to their popularity, manageable diversity and well-resolved taxonomy, Odonata is the only insect order for which a global status assessm...

Riverine damselflies of the family Calopterygidae occur on all continents except Australia and Antartica. Sixty-seven of the 73 species distributed in the New World are members of the exclusively Neotropical subfamily Hetaerininae. Unique combinations of morphological traits make the subfamily easily to recognize. However, species resolution has be...

Damselflies of the Neotropical family Polythoridae compromise six genera (Chalcoptheryx, Chalcothore, Cora, Euthore, Polythore, and Stenocora) with approximately 58 species. Euthore and Polythore are medium-size damselflies with an amazing diversity in wing color pattern, including orange, reddish, white and black spots. Chalcoptheryx are smaller d...

The Neotropical damselfly genus Polythore consists of nineteen described morphospecies. We used the COI barcode locus (799bp), male genitalia, wing venation, and geometrical pattern variation to clarify specific status in four Polythore procera populations in the Andean foothill of Colombia. Morphological data corroborates that all populations are...

The Neotropical damselfly genus Polythore consists of nineteen described morphospecies. We used the COI barcode locus (799 bp), male genitalia, wing venation, and geometrical pattern variation to clarify specific status in four Polythore procera populations in the Andean foothills of Colombia. Morphological data corroborates that all populations ar...

We studied a population of Polythore procera along a stream in the Colombian eastern Andean foothills. Mark and recapture samples were made during January to April 2006, covering both dry and wet seasons. We determined population size, daily survival probability, and longevity during the entire period and compared them with precipitation data. Age...