A unique and delicate damselfly is found nowhere else in Alberta other than Banff National Park.
Like grizzly bears and wolverines, the vivid dancer damselfly is federally listed as a species of special concern. It is found only in southern British Columbia and Alberta in Canada.
In Alberta, the predatory insect is found only in Banff’s thermal springs at the Cave and Basin and nearby Middle Springs – in the same environment as the endangered and protected Banff Springs Snail.
“Even though the species is found in B.C. and down into the States, in Alberta it’s only in Banff associated with the thermal springs, kind of like the Banff Springs Snail,” said Mark Taylor, aquatics ecologist for Banff National Park.
“Even though there’s hundreds of species of damselflies in the world, they’re the only species in the whole world that lives in thermal springs. There’s lots of other species that are associated with springs in general, but not with the warm temperatures.”
Damselflies play a critical role in the ecosystems where they live. As both predators and prey, they are a crucial part of the food web in aquatic environments.
Their presence is also often an indicator of a healthy ecosystem, as they are sensitive to water quality and habitat changes.
“When they are in the larval stage they are the top predator in any water where there’s no fish and a lot of the water in the Middle Springs wildlife corridor, the thermal springs there where the snails are, don’t have any fish,” Taylor said, adding there are mosquito fish at the Cave and Basin.
“I think they are a pretty neat species, and at the Cave and Basin, at the right time, if you’re there in July and August when it’s sunny and warm, then you are likely to see one flying around and landing on the wooden railings along the boardwalk.”
Vivid dancers overwinter as larvae and emerge as adults from late-April through mid-October, depending on the temperature of the spring.
Adults fly within the surrounding forest and feed on small flying insects, such as mosquitoes, mayflies, and small moths.
In late summer, adults return to the spring to breed. Females lay eggs on vegetation below the water’s surface.
Larvae are aquatic, feeding on small invertebrates and using aquatic vegetation for cover. Adults fall prey to dragonflies, spiders, amphibians, and birds. Fish, amphibians, and possibly waterfowl likely consume vivid dancer larvae.
The colour of damselflies can also be strikingly vibrant, which in the case for the vivid dancer is bright blue to violet with black markings.
“You don’t see that shade of blue in nature too often,” Taylor said.
The vivid dancer was designated a species of special concern by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) in 2015, and was listed under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) in 2019.
In 2022, a management plan for the vivid dancer in Canada was finalized and adopted under SARA.
Outside B.C. and Banff, the species does range south through the western United States to the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, east to Nebraska.
Through much of its Canadian range, the vivid dancer is restricted to thermal springs, but in the hot Okanagan and the Fraser valleys, it is also found in cooler, spring-fed creeks.
Habitat loss and degradation at most sites suggest most subpopulations have declined and several historical sites have disappeared, according to the management plan.
In Banff, some sites where the vivid dancer lives are offered habitat protection under the designation of sections of certain springs as critical habitat for the endangered Banff Springs Snail, a tiny lemon seed-sized snail found nowhere else in the world.
“Because they are found in the same habitat and they are not listed as endangered like the snail, I think maybe we sort of expected the protections for the snails are basically doing double duty for the damselfly as well,” Taylor said.
“There hasn’t been nearly as much effort at researching them.”
However, Taylor said a survey was done this summer to get a better handle on the distribution of the vivid dancer, which had not been done formally in about 20 years.
He said the 2022 management plan for the vivid dancer has a list of locations, but there were some uncertainties surrounding some.
“We were able to confirm their current distribution and their breeding status,” Taylor said.
“We’re looking for the larvae rather than adults because if you find the larvae, then you know that they're actually breeding there.”
Taylor said there are some sites, such as a cool spring at Third Vermilion Lakes, where vivid dancers have been observed in the past.
“It could be an adult that emerged at the Cave and Basin – and they do disperse when they’re in that adult winged stage – so you might be looking at one at Vermilion that’s actually from the Cave and Basin,” he said.
“The presence of the adult doesn’t necessarily prove that there’s reproduction going on, but I think the new piece of information for me was that we were not able to demonstrate reproduction; we did not find any larvae at that site at Vermilion.”
Another site near the closed Middle Springs Wildlife corridor – the site of the original Alpine Club of Canada before it moved to Canmore – was also examined.
“That was another location where the adults have been seen but nobody had confirmed reproduction,” Taylor said.
“We did extensive surveys in there as well and also could not find the larvae, so that means any adults that have been seen there in the past were from another population.”
In addition, the survey turned up a new location that had never been documented before, again within the protected Middle Springs corridor near the site of the former historic Wheeler House that was demolished in 2011.
“There’s a small stream in there that had never been sampled, and we sampled that this year, and found confirmation of the larvae. They breed there,” he said.
“It’s really important for the biologists to actually get outside and get out there on the ground and look for these places. You can’t document them just by looking at a map.”
Taylor said there were also two sites – the Upper Hot Springs and Kidney Springs – where vivid dancers had been documented breeding in the past, but no signs of reproduction were found this time around.
“I think the take home message from all of this is we need to start doing more formal surveys,” he said.
The Upper Hot Springs and Kidney Springs have both run dry in the past, which is a continual concern for the endangered snail.
While the vivid dancer is faced with threats in neighbouring B.C., such as loss of habitat through developments, agriculture, encroachment on wetlands, thermal springs drying up in Banff is a threat.
“We have the luxury of not worrying about those in Banff that they do in B.C., but drying up of thermal springs is one that we are concerned about,” Taylor said.
While it is a complex system, Taylor said it is a fair assumption that climate change may play a contributing role in the springs running dry.
“Of course, it makes us nervous that in the future, climate change is a threat to water quantity in general, so it’s possible it becomes more of a real threat to the vivid dancer,” he said.
Another threat to the vivid dancer could end up being non-native species. Parks Canada has a program to deal with aquatic invasive species.
Taylor said watercress, which is native to Europe and Asia, is found at the Cave and Basin and a few other places like Vermilion Lakes.
“We don’t have any reason to believe today that there’s a problem with watercress there, but one of the general problems with invasive species is that because they often don’t have any sort of natural checks and balances in the environment, when they get into a novel environment, when they’re invading, they can often proliferate,” he said.
“Down the road with climate change, we don’t know if either watercress or some other invasive plant could end up doing really well at the Cave and Basin and end up taking up some of that habitat and excluding the vivid dancer.”
While animals like bears and wolverines often get more attention, Taylor said small animals like damselflies can be just as important in the food chain, noting damselfly larvae are predators in the water.
“Regardless of its position in the food chain and role in the environment, it’s also yet another detail of something natural in our environment that is unique to this location specifically, so that sense of identity,” he said.
“It just adds to the uniqueness of Banff and the uniqueness of the Cave and Basin area in general. It’s got to be one of the most diverse places in Banff.”