The area that this four spotted pennant calls home is the southeastern shrub bog which is also known as pocosin. Pocosin describes a type marshy or swampy wetland with deep, acidic, sandy, peat soils, without flowing water, containing ocean derived salts in concentrations of less than .05%, and is nontidal. Shrubs and Pond Pines are very common as well as Loblolly and Long Leaf Pines.
The Pond Pine is a tree found along the coastal plain of the eastern United States, it can reach a height of 30 meters but usually grows between 10 and 20 meters. . It has serotinous cones meaning they require fire to melt the resin to open and release the seeds. This is similar to the Canadian Jack Pine.
In summer 2008 an ongoing drought and a lightning strike started a blaze near the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Many people believe drainage ditches and canals used to make the land agriculturally friendly in the mid part of last century has further dried out the carbon rich peat, to the point where prescribed burns to control wildfires were not conducted in such areas because of the risks. Much of the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge , In Columbia, NC, where this photo was taken were consumed in the fire.
While this was good news for the reproduction of the Pond Pine, it was devastating news for some of the other species in the refuge. Namely the Red Wolf . This refuge was important to the reintroduction of the extremely vulnerable Red Wolf to the wild. Currently there are no known wild red wolves with about 100 total in population.
As for the dragonflies, I am sure they will return, Insects are incredibly adaptable, it may be decades before the diversity of the refuge returns. Dragonflies like the four spotted Pennant spend one to three years underwater and only emerge as adults for a couple weeks of their entire lives. Given the time of the wildfires, and the magnitude of the drought and the wildfire, not many survived last year.


http://www.fws.gov/Pocosinlakes/management.html
http://www.fws.gov/pocosinlakes/
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1115666.html
http://www.refugewatch.org/2008/06/08/fire-at-pocosin-lakes-nwr/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocosin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pond_Pine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palustrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_pine
http://bugguide.net/node/view/18776
http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_insects/DragonflyLife.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly