0000000001319456
AUTHOR
Juan Arroyo
What is a tree in the Mediterranean Basin hotspot? A critical analysis
Background: Tree species represent 20% of the vascular plant species worldwide and they play a crucial role in the global functioning of the biosphere. The Mediterranean Basin is one of the 36 world biodiversity hotspots, and it is estimated that forests covered 82% of the landscape before the first human impacts, thousands of years ago. However, the spatial distribution of the Mediterranean biodiversity is still imperfectly known, and a focus on tree species constitutes a key issue for understanding forest functioning and develop conservation strategies. Methods: We provide the first comprehensive checklist of all native tree taxa (species and subspecies) present in the Mediterranean-Europ…
WOODIV, a database of occurrences, functional traits, and phylogenetic data for all Euro-Mediterranean trees
Trees play a key role in the structure and function of many ecosystems worldwide. In the Mediterranean Basin, forests cover approximately 22% of the total land area hosting a large number of endemics (46 species). Despite its particularities and vulnerability, the biodiversity of Mediterranean trees is not well known at the taxonomic, spatial, functional, and genetic levels required for conservation applications. The WOODIV database fills this gap by providing reliable occurrences, four functional traits (plant height, seed mass, wood density, and specific leaf area), and sequences from three DNA-regions (rbcL, matK, and trnH-psbA), together with modelled occurrences and a phylogeny for all…
Acceptance and knowledge of evolutionary theory among third-year university students in Spain
The theory of evolution is one of the greatest scientific achievements in the intellectual history of humankind, yet it is still contentious within certain social groups. Despite being as robust and evidence-based as any other notable scientific theory, some people show a strong reluctance to accept it. In this study, we used the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) and Knowledge of Evolution Exam (KEE) questionnaires with university students from four academic degree programs (Chemistry, English, History, and Biology) of ten universities from Spain to measure, respectively, acceptance and knowledge of evolutionary theory among third-year undergraduate students (nMATE = 9…
Limited potential for bird migration to disperse plants to cooler latitudes
Climate change is forcing the redistribution of life on Earth at an unprecedented velocity1,2. Migratory birds are thought to help plants to track climate change through long-distance seed dispersal3,4. However, seeds may be consistently dispersed towards cooler or warmer latitudes depending on whether the fruiting period of a plant species coincides with northward or southward migrations. Here we assess the potential of plant communities to keep pace with climate change through long-distance seed dispersal by migratory birds. To do so, we combine phenological and migration information with data on 949 seed-dispersal interactions between 46 bird and 81 plant species from 13 woodland communi…
Additional file 1: of What is a tree in the Mediterranean Basin hotspot? A critical analysis
Table S1. Checklist of the tree taxa (species and subspecies) occuring in theMediterranean-European region, from Portugal to Cyprus. The definition of the families follows the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG III 2009; APG IV 2016). Theretained nomenclature of the tree taxa is compared with those of the Euro+Med database ( http://www.emplantbase.org/home.html ), the volume series Chorology of trees and shrubs in south-westAsia and adjacent regions (Browicz 1982–1996) and the World Checklist Kew. For the occurence of eachtree taxa in a country or a large island, we indicate the endemism status, the cultivated status, theautochthonous (native: N) or allochthonous (introduced: I) status. Taxa f…