Short-term trends, trend drivers and conservation status of Onychogomphus boudoti.

In the high, flat plateaus of Morocco's Middle Atlas mountains, a unique world of water exists in the form of spring-fed streams. These are not the roaring rivers of the lowlands, but delicate, constant flows emerging from the earth, known as rheocrene springs. They are the nurseries for a specific group of dragonflies that spend their larval lives underwater before emerging as adults to fly over the landscape. For scientists who study these insects, known as odonates, the health of a spring is a direct measure of the health of the entire ecosystem. When a spring dries up or becomes too polluted by human activity, the specialized creatures that depend on it vanish. This is not just a loss of a single species, but a collapse of a fragile, isolated web of life that has evolved nowhere else on Earth. Understanding how these tiny habitats change over just a few years is critical, because for species with very small populations, a single bad season can mean the difference between survival and extinction.

At the center of this story is Onychogomphus boudoti, a dragonfly found nowhere else in the world. It is strictly endemic to Morocco, meaning its entire global population lives only in the upper reaches of the Oum Er Rabia river basin. This species is already listed as Critically Endangered, a status reserved for animals facing an extremely high risk of disappearing in the wild. Until recently, scientists knew of about twenty places where this dragonfly lived, all clustered in the Khenifra province. But in the spring of 2024, a team led by researcher Eric Durand returned to these sites to see how the population was faring. What they found was a rapid and alarming decline. In just two years, the number of places where the dragonfly was confirmed to be living and breeding dropped by more than half. Of the twenty locations where the species was known to be established in 2022, only nine remained in 2024. The researchers calculated that this represents a statistically significant drop of roughly 53 to 55 percent in the species' occupied territory in such a short time.

The investigation revealed two main forces driving this disappearance. The first is a severe, long-term drought that has gripped Morocco since 2019. This is not a temporary dry spell but a structural shift in the climate, affecting rainfall and snowpack in the mountains. During the 2024 surveys, the team observed that seven of the spring localities had completely dried out. The water that once fed these streams had vanished, taking the dragonfly larvae with them. The second force is the pressure of livestock grazing. The researchers found that at every site where the dragonfly still lived, cattle and sheep were present. They developed a way to measure the disturbance caused by these animals, looking at how much the ground was trampled, whether fences and water troughs were built too close to the spring, and how much of the delicate plant life covering the water had been eaten or crushed. They found that the lower the altitude, the worse the disturbance. Sites below 1,300 meters above sea level were under the heaviest pressure, while those higher up remained slightly better protected.

The data showed a clear link between these pressures and the dragonfly's fate. The team found that the places where the dragonfly was still successfully breeding had significantly less human and animal disturbance than the places where it had disappeared. The dry springs were gone, but even the springs that still held water were struggling. The heavy grazing degraded the quality of the water and the banks, making it difficult for the dragonflies to lay their eggs or for the young to survive. In some cases, the researchers even witnessed the tragic result of this degradation: a male dragonfly attempting to emerge from its underwater shell but failing, likely due to the poor condition of its habitat. The study ruled out the idea that the dragonflies were simply hiding or that the researchers had missed them; the surveys were thorough, timed perfectly with the insect's flight season, and repeated to ensure accuracy. The absence of the dragonfly meant it was truly gone from those spots.

This rapid decline highlights a precarious future for a species that has nowhere else to go. The combination of a drying climate and intensive grazing has created a perfect storm for Onychogomphus boudoti. The researchers emphasize that saving this dragonfly will require more than just protecting the water; it demands a new approach to how people use the land around these springs. They point to a recent conservation project that successfully engaged local shepherds to protect two specific springs, proving that cooperation between scientists, local communities, and government bodies is possible. The survival of this unique Moroccan dragonfly now depends on integrating these conservation efforts with the daily realities of rural life, ensuring that the springs remain wet enough and quiet enough for the next generation of these rare insects to emerge.