Walking through meadows inside the Everglades National Parks during this time of year often feels dreamlike as insects beat their translucent wings and dance in the air alongside you. Beautiful in flight and quick in speed, the dragonflies soar across the vast acreage of the wetland ecosystems. Being highly dependent on water, dragonflies hatch their eggs along the water’s surface for the eggs to morph days later into their nymph life stage, which can last anywhere from a couple of months to a couple of years, depending on their species. During this stage they become a major food source for frogs, fish, and turtles, adding to the overall food web of the aquatic ecosystem found just below the surface. After they finally emerge from their exoskeleton and become airborne, they are then able to openly pray upon the state’s unofficial official animal, the mosquito.
The dragonflies of the Everglades Ecosystem are visitors’ (and naturalists’) unsung heroes when visiting Everglades National Park. As a pivotal organism in the Everglades ecological ecosystem and a crucial part of the food web, dragonflies can feed on mosquitos in all their life stages, helping to control the overbearing population of mosquitos that plague the summer air. In fact, mosquitoes fear the sound of the dragonflies’ wings as they recognize their biggest predator, causing me to make silent wishes to be constantly swarmed by dragonflies each time I step along the many trails within the park. On Anhinga Trail, I often find Blue Dashers and Halloween Pennants dancing along the water’s surface as I eye the water’s edge for one of the park’s largest species of megafauna, the American Alligator. With these beautiful, though primitive insects fluttering beside me, I can breathe easy as I tend to go from about thirty mosquito bites to none, leaving me less itchy and even more enthusiastic to see more of the park.
Roughly 15% of Florida’s dragonfly species are found south of Lake Okeechobee in Everglades National Park. Though nearly a fifth of the world’s species of dragonflies have now been added to the International Conservation of Nature’s Threatened Species list, it has been a breath of fresh air to see the dragonflies of the Everglades doing so well which is due, in large part, to the restoration of flowing water throughout the roughly 2400 square mile wetland. Over the past twenty years, the United States has dedicated approximately 10.5 billion dollars running 68 different restoration projects dedicated to restoring the aquatic canals and pathways that once created the many wonderous ecosystems of the Everglades National Park. Written By: Heather Haines
To read more about the ongoing restoration projects going on in the park click here.
To read more about the human impact on dragonfly populations, click here.
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Meet Heather Haines – Naturalist at FNPA
I have recently started at the Florida National Parks Association as a naturalist a few months ago and applying here felt like a calling. Having bounced across the country throughout my adult life, looking for a place where I feel like I could make the biggest difference, while still fulfilling the human desire to have that feeling of home, I realized that South Florida was the perfect place to settle down. Though originally born in Alabama, I grew up in the coastal wetlands of Mississippi, roughly forty minutes outside of New Orleans, Louisiana. South Florida, though more rich in the Hispanic Culture than the Cajun French culture that I grew so accustomed to growing up, the similarities between the two cultures helped me feel right at home. (Well, it was either that or the feeling of humidity and proximity to the swamp that reminded me heavily of home.)
My background is centered around Marine Biology, having a Bachelor’s in Marine Biology and Chemistry and a Master’s in Marine Science. Up until the pandemic, I have sailed along the Pacific Ocean, lived on the Bering Sea, and even cruised through the Agulhas Current in search of what I could do to help the state of the natural world and throughout my travels I realized that the one thing that many people have in common is that though they are interested in the ocean and the surrounding environment, they often do not want to major in it, making it difficult to know vital information necessary to lesson their individual impact on the world around them. Therefore, at the age of 26, I pivoted in my previous career path and decided to teach to educate the next generation in the state of the world. However, after three years, I wanted to see other ways I could educate people from all over the world, across many age groups and cultural backgrounds, on the fragile ecosystems found within the Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park to shed light on anthropogenic impact on both Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay.
What I look forward to most is volunteering on restoration projects going on in the parks so that I can feel active in my pursuit to make even a small change in the natural world for the better. In doing so, I am also excited to relay anything I learn during these volunteer opportunities to guests in hopes of getting people excited about why we bother to restore the water flow of the Everglades and the seagrasses of Biscayne Bay in the first place.
