Klaas-Douwe ‘KD’ B. Dijkstra

Photography http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiskadee/

a short overview of my work and interests

With their amphibious habits and habitat sensitivity, Odonata respond strongly to change above and below the water surface. Such change can be natural or anthropogenic, e.g. deforestation and erosion versus gradual landscape conversion and altering river courses. Odonate dispersal capacities range from negligible to intercontinental and from airborne (adults) to waterborne (larvae). Thus Odonata are suitable to evaluate habitat connectivity and environmental change in the long and short term (biogeography, climatology, conservation biology).

My passionate interest for natural history began when I was nine, living in Egypt. After obtaining an MSc in evolutionary biology, biogeography and systematics at Leiden University in 1998 (cum laude), I worked on African and European Odonata at the National Museum of Natural History (Naturalis) in Leiden, The Netherlands.

I obtained a PhD at Leiden University in May 2007, with accumulated work on the biogeography and taxonomy of Afrotropical Odonata, publishing over forty papers on the subject since 2002 (thesis). The African landscape is ever-changing under geological, climatic and human influence. Study of its over 700 species of Odonata helps understand the continent’s past and future. Research was undertaken in numerous museums and in sixteen African countries, including during three of CI’s RAP biodiversity assessments. I shared the Worldwide Dragonfly Association (WDA) outstanding achievement award for this work in 2005. As a member of the IUCN Odonata Specialist Group since 2003, I contributed to the Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment of Africa (2006-2009), resulting in Red List assessments for all species.

I became curator of invertebrates at the National Zoological Collection of Suriname in 2007, initiating collaboration with Naturalis: supported by the Dutch Foreign Ministry, Naturalis’s Suriname collections will be disclosed in databases and books. I returned to Naturalis in 2008, co-funded by Conservation International (CI), to support the Global Dragonfly Assessment (GDA). I continue to do systematic, phylogenetic, biogeographic and ecological research on Odonata, especially of Palaeotropical Zygoptera as part of the DAWN working group (Damselfly Workers at Naturalis). 

I published an English fieldguide to European Odonata with Richard Lewington in July 2006; French and Dutch editions appeared in 2007 and 2008. I was co-editor and co-author of the handbook of Dutch Odonata (1998-2002) and co-founded the Dutch society for odonatology (NVL) in 1997, being editor-in-chief of its journal (Brachytron) until 2001. Since 2007 I am an editor of the ISI-listed International Journal of Odonatology.

Read my complete curriculum vitae, look at my publication list and download PDFs...

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