Vincent Kalkman

I am an entomologist interested in describing and understanding patterns of diversity. Recent projects included a wide variety of groups ranging from birds to bats and from grasshoppers to true bugs, but dragonflies are for sure my favorite study subject. For this I use a variety of methods including image- and sound recognition, species distribution modelling, phylogenomics, citizen science projects and classical morphology. My preferred research method is fieldwork and hence I regularly organise scientific expeditions for both volunteer experts and professional entomologists.

Keywords

Biogeography, phylogeny, dragonflies, damselflies, freshwater, biodiversity hotspots

Research
interest

My main aim is to describe and understand the global diversity patterns of dragonflies and damselflies and understand how the distribution patterns we observe today evolved over the past 200 million years. Furthermore I am interested in how climate change is reshaping distribution patterns. My active involvement in the IUCN Dragonfly Specialist Group ensures that this information is used for conservation of global freshwater biodiversity.

Current
topics

A selection of the topics I am currently working on.

Dragonfly & Damselfly diversity

My work on dragonflies and damselflies is focused at two main questions: (1) what historical factors shaped the diversity patterns we see nowadays and (2) how will climate change impact on these diversity patterns? In order to address these questions, I…

Bhutan biodiversity project

Bhutanese and Dutch scientists are involved in a common effort to describe and better understand the biodiversity of Bhutan (Bhutan Biodiversity Project). This cooperation has since 2015 resulted in numerous small expeditions and the discovery and…

Stichting Fonds Pontium for systematic zoology

Fonds Pontium provides funding to projects which promote the scientific field of systematic zoology in general and in particular alpha taxonomy at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden. In general grant sizes will vary between 1000 and 2500 euro. The…

ARISE: knowing Nature in the Netherlands

ARISE, the infrastructure identifying all multicellular species in the Netherlands, is now open for use. The platform offers a central place to identify and study all multicellular life in the Netherlands. Developed by Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the…

Kalkman, V. J., Boudot, J.-P., Futahashi, R., Abbott, J. C., Bota-Sierra, C. A., Guralnick, R., Bybee, S. M., Ware, J., & Belitz, M. W. (2022). Diversity of Palaearctic dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata). Diversity, 14(11), 966.
Cadena, J. T., Boudot, J.‐P., Kalkman, V. J., & Marshall, L. (2023). Impacts of climate change on dragonflies and damselflies in West and Central Asia. Diversity and Distributions, 29(7), 912–925.
Dow, R. A., Choong, C. Y., Grinang, J., Lupiyaningdyah, P., Ngiam, R. W. J., & Kalkman, V. J. (2024). Checklist of the Odonata (Insecta) of Sundaland and Wallacea (Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia and Timor Leste). Zootaxa, 5460(1), 1–122.
Sayer, C. A., … Kalkman, V.J. … & Harrison, I. (2025). One-quarter of freshwater fauna threatened with extinction. Nature, 638(8049), 138–145.
Ghani, B., Kalkman, V. J., Planqué, B., Vellinga, W.-P., Gill, L., & Stowell, D. (2025). Impact of transfer learning methods and dataset characteristics on generalization in birdsong classification. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 16273.
Carter, J., Goodman, A., Abbott, J., Bota Sierra, C., Bybee, S., Dow, R., Fomekong Lontchi, J., Frandsen, P., Gonzalez Mozo, L., Guralnick, R., Hämäläinen, M., Joshi, S., Kohli, M., Lupiyaningdyah, P., Montana, J., Newton, J., Onsongo, F., Orr, A., Pinto, A., Sanchez-Herrera, M., Sutherland, C., Theischinger, G., Ware, J., Zhang, H., & Kalkman, V.J. (2026). The classification and diversity of extant dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata). International Journal of Odonatology, 29, 95–124. https://doi.org/10.48156/1388.2026.1917385