Odonates across a tropical urbanization gradient (Mula River, Pune, Maharashtra, India)

Globally urban wetlands are under high anthropogenic pressure of degradation. Urban wetlands are hotspots for species losses and rapid turnover in species assemblages. Therefore, studying such wetlands may provide an estimate of the pace of local extinction, concerning wetlanddependent species such as odonates. We undertook a study to document odonate species across a tropical urbanization gradient. We sampled six localities across the gradient across the Mula River that flows through the Pune City, India. We sampled adult odonates using a newly devised Halfcircle Point Count method from September 2016 to March 2017. We took multiple temporal replicates per site. We also sampled larvae across six sites once in November 2016. We measured site characteristics such as canopy cover, solid waste, and water turbidity to understand the level of disturbance at each site. We recorded 41 odonates, six species (primarily Gomphidae members) exclusively from the larval sampling. We did not find the localization of species in a particular site across the urbanization gradient, possibly because we sampled a relatively short stretch of the river to capture the variation. Here, we update the Odonata list of Pune including data on larvae. We demonstrate that larval sampling complements Odonata surveys, especially in recording Gomphids. We recommend future research to include a longer timespan and extensive sampling area.