
Conchita AlonsoDoñana Biological Station · Evolutionary Ecology
Conchita Alonso
PhD
About
86
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Introduction
I am a Plant Evolutionary Ecologist particularly interested in plant-animal interactions, mating system evolution and epigenetics
Publications
Publications (86)
The frequencies and lengths of drought periods are increasing in subtropical and temperate regions worldwide. Epigenetic responses to water stress could be key for plant resilience to these largely unpredictable challenges. Experimental DNA demethylation, together with application of a stress factor is an appropriate strategy to reveal the contribu...
In flowering plants, pollinators contribute to gene flow while they also respond to variation in plant traits together determined by genetic, epigenetic and environmental sources of variation. Consequently, a correlation between abundance and diversity of pollinators and the genetic and epigenetic characteristics of plant populations such as divers...
Epigenetic states offer an additional layer of variation besides genetic polymorphism that contribute to phenotypic variation and may arise either randomly or in response to environmental factors. We hypothesize that closely related species with different life-histories and habitat requirements could show distinct patterns of intraspecific epigenet...
Las sierras Béticas, con una extensión inferior al 8% de la Península ibérica, contienen el 45% de su flora. Hay casos como el de Sierra Nevada, que representando sólo el 0,4% de la superficie peninsular, contiene el 25% de su flora, alcanzando en las cumbres un 30-40% de endemismos. Con una aproximación multidisciplinar, abordamos la dimensión de...
Premise of the study . Mounting evidence supports the view that the responses of plants to environmental stress are mediated by epigenetic factors, including DNA methylation. Understanding the relationships between DNA methylation, plant development and individual fitness under contrasting environments is key to uncover the potential impact of epig...
Changes in epigenetic states can allow individuals to cope with environmental changes. If such changes are heritable, this may lead to epigenetic adaptation. Thus, it is likely that in sessile organisms such as plants, part of the spatial epigenetic variation found across individuals will reflect the environmental heterogeneity within populations....
Full-text free at: http://sea-entomologia.org/000_091_MONO17_abejasCazorla.pdf. The paper presents data on the bee species of the Sierra de Cazorla (Jaén province, Spain) recorded in the period 1953-2022. An inventory has been prepared that registers 392 species belonging to 46 genera. This inventory provides collection data for each species in the...
Increasing evidence supports a major role of abiotic stress response in the success of plant polyploids, which usually thrive in harsh environments. However, understanding the ecophysiology of polyploids is challenging due to interactions between genome doubling and natural selection. Here, we investigated physiological responses, gene expression,...
DNA cytosine methylation is an epigenetic mechanism involved in regulation of plant responses to biotic and abiotic stress and its ability to change can vary with the sequence context in which a cytosine appears (CpG, CHG, CHH, where H = Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine). Quantification of DNA methylation in model plant species is frequently addressed by...
A bstract
Epigenetic information can be heritable, but also respond to key environmental variables in situ, endowing individuals with an additional capacity to adapt to environmental changes. Thus, it is likely that in sesile organisms such as plants, part of the spatial epigenetic variation found across individuals will reflect the environmental h...
In flowering plants, pollinators contribute to gene flow while they also respond to variation in plant traits together determined by genetic, epigenetic and environmental sources of variation. Consequently, a correlation between abundance and diversity of pollinators and the genetic and epigenetic characteristics of plant populations such as divers...
The long‐known, widely documented inverse relationship between body size and environmental temperature (“temperature‐size rule”) has recently led to predictions of body size decline following current climatic warming (“size shrinking effect”). For keystone pollinators such as wild bees, body shrinking in response to warming can have significant eff...
Understanding the factors that drive community‐wide assembly of plant‐pollinator systems along environmental gradients has considerable evolutionary, ecological, and applied significance. Variation in thermal environments combined with intrinsic differences among pollinators in thermal biology have been proposed as drivers of community‐wide pollina...
The frequency and length of drought periods are increasing in subtropical and temperate regions worldwide. Epigenetic responses to water stress could be key for plant resilience to this largely unpredictable challenge. Experimental DNA demethylation together with application of a stress factor stands as a suitable strategy to uncover the contributi...
Our paper in Journal of Ecology has been the Editor's choice of November 2022, please read the fantastic blog message written by Richard Shefferson
The long-known, widely documented inverse relationship between body size and environmental temperature (“temperature-size rule”) has recently led to predictions of body size decline following current climatic warming (“size shrinking effect”). For keystone pollinators such as wild bees, body shrinking in response to warming can have pervasive effec...
Studying how different plant groups deal with heavy metal exposure is crucial to improve our understanding of the diversity of molecular mechanisms involved in plant stress response. Here, we used RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) and epigenotyping by sequencing (epiGBS) to assess gene expression and DNA methylation changes respectively in plants from four...
Understanding the factors that drive community-wide assembly of plant-pollinator systems along environmental gradients has considerable evolutionary, ecological and applied significance. Variation in thermal environments combined with intrinsic differences among pollinators in thermal biology (tolerance limits, thermal optima, thermoregulatory abil...
Intraindividual epigenetic mosaicism is probably widespread among long‐lived plants, yet its ecological significance as a potential source of variation in fitness‐related traits in plant populations remains virtually unexplored. This paper examines the hypothesis that extant epigenetic variation within plants can have both current and transgenerati...
Plant metabolic pathways and gene networks involved in the response to herbivory are well-established, but the impact of epigenetic factors as modulators of those responses is less understood. Here, we use the demethylating agent 5-azacytidine to uncover the role of DNA cytosine methylation on phenotypic responses after short-term herbivory in Thla...
The remarkable capacity of bryophytes to tolerate extremely challenging abiotic conditions allows us to enhance our understanding of the diversity of molecular mechanisms involved in plant stress response. Here, we used next generation sequencing to study DNA methylation and gene expression changes in plants from four populations of the metallophyt...
Bryophytes’ remarkable capacity to tolerate extreme abiotic conditions allows us to enhance our understanding of the diversity of molecular mechanisms involved in plant stress response. Here, we used next generation sequencing to study DNA methylation and gene expression changes in plants from four populations of the metallophyte moss Scopelophila...
A sound biological education at early schooling stages is highly desirable for individual understanding of the nature of science and comprehension of evolutionary theory. Making accessible the concepts to young minds is notwithstanding key and playful learning linked to artistic projects can be useful to reach this goal. Here, we propose a set of a...
Phenotypic variation determines the capacity of plants to adapt to changing environments and to colonize new habitats. Deciphering the mechanisms contributing to plant phenotypic variation and their effects on plant ecological interactions and evolutionary dynamics is thus central to all biological disciplines. In the past few decades, research on...
Epigenetic mosaicism is a possible source of within‐plant phenotypic heterogeneity, yet its frequency and developmental origin remain unexplored. This study examines whether extant epigenetic heterogeneity within Lavandula latifolia (Lamiaceae) shrubs reflects recent epigenetic modifications experienced independently by different plant parts or, al...
Anthropogenic activities have increased exposure to heavy metal pollution in previously uncontaminated ecosystems, threatening plant communities. Considering that phenotypic variation underlies rapid adjustment to challenging environmental conditions in natural populations, the study of variation in traits related to plant response to heavy metal s...
Epigenetic mosaicism is a possible source of within-plant phenotypic heterogeneity, yet its frequency and developmental origin remain unexplored. This study examines whether the extant epigenetic heterogeneity within long-lived Lavandula latifolia (Lamiaceae) shrubs reflects recent epigenetic modifications experienced independently by different pla...
Background:
Self-compatibility is common on endemic plant species, but pollen limitation and self-pollination could be risk factors.
Study species:
The endemic Cienfuegosia yucatanensis (Malvaceae), whose distribution is mainly restricted to the north coast of the peninsula of Yucatán, México.
Questions:
a) Are flowers of C. yucatanensis autonomo...
The ecological dynamics of co‐flowering communities are largely mediated by pollinators. However, current understanding of pollinator‐mediated interactions primarily relies on how co‐flowering plants influence attraction of shared pollinators, and much less is known about plant–plant interactions that occur via heterospecific pollen (HP) transfer....
Genetic diversity is generally considered the chief determinant of evolutionary change, but epigenetic diversity is now recognized as another layer of heritable variation with potential adaptive consequences. Epigenetic diversity could sometimes (fragmented populations, stressing habitats) alleviate the loss of genetic diversity and provide an “evo...
Background:
Pollen transfer via animals is necessary for reproduction by ~80% of flowering plants, and most of these plants live in multispecies communities where they can share pollinators. While diffuse plant-pollinator interactions are increasingly recognized as the rule rather than the exception, their fitness consequences cannot be deduced fr...
The interactions between pairs of native and alien plants via shared use of pollinators have been widely studied. Community level studies however, are necessary in order to fully understand the factors and mechanisms that facilitate successful plant invasion, but these are still scarce. Specifically, few community level studies have considered how...
The interspecific range of epigenetic variation and the degree to which differences between angiosperm species are related to geography, evolutionary history, ecological settings or species‐specific traits, remain essentially unexplored. Genome‐wide global DNA cytosine methylation is a tractable ‘epiphenotypic’ feature suitable for exploring these...
Premise:
Phenotypic heterogeneity of reiterated, homologous structures produced by individual plants has ecological consequences for plants and their animal consumers. This paper examines experimentally the epigenetic mosaicism hypothesis, which postulates that within-plant variation in traits of reiterated structures may partly arise from differe...
The interactions between pairs of native and alien plants via shared use of pollinators have been widely studied. Studies of invasive species effects at the community level on the other hand are still scarce. Few community level studies, however, have considered how differences in the intensity of invasion, and degree of floral trait similarity bet...
Premise of the Study
There is growing interest in understanding plant–plant interactions via pollen transfer at the community level. Studies on the structure and spatial variability of pollen transfer networks have been valuable to this understanding. However, there is high variability in the intensity of sampling used to characterize pollen transf...
Plants are hubs of a wide range of biotic interactions with mutualist and antagonist animals, microbes and neighboring plants. Because the quality and intensity of those relationships can change over time, a fast and reversible response to stress is required. Here, we review recent studies on the role of epigenetic factors such as DNA methylation a...
Premise of the Study
The ecological and evolutionary significance of natural epigenetic variation (i.e., not based on DNA sequence variants) variation will depend critically on whether epigenetic states are transmitted from parents to offspring, but little is known on epigenetic inheritance in nonmodel plants.
Methods
We present a quantitative ana...
Background and aims:
Sub-individual variation in traits of homologous structures has multiple ecological consequences for individuals and populations. Assessing the evolutionary significance of such effects requires an improved knowledge of the mechanisms underlying within-plant phenotypic heterogeneity. The hypothesis that continuous within-plant...
Experimental alteration of DNA methylation is a suitable tool to infer the relationship between phenotypic and epigenetic variation in plants. A detailed analysis of the genome-wide effect of demethylating agents, such as 5-azacytidine (5azaC), and zebularine is only available for the model species Arabidopsis thaliana, which suggests that 5azaC ma...
Growing evidence shows that epigenetic mechanisms contribute to complex traits, with implications across many fields of biology. In plant ecology, recent studies have attempted to merge ecological experiments with epigenetic analyses to elucidate the contribution of epigenetics to plant phenotypes, stress responses, adaptation to habitat, and range...
Epigenetic signals can affect plant phenotype and fitness and be stably inherited across multiple generations. Epigenetic regulation plays a key role in the mechanisms of plant response to the environment without altering DNA sequence. As plants cannot adapt behaviourally or migrate instantly, such dynamic epigenetic responses may be particularly c...
Growing evidence makes a strong case that epigenetic mechanisms contribute to complex traits, with implications across many fields of biology from dissecting developmental processes to understanding aspects of human health and disease. In ecology, recent studies have merged ecological experimental design with epigenetic analyses to elucidate the co...
Polyploidization is a significant evolutionary force in plants which involves major genomic and genetic changes, frequently regulated by epigenetic factors. We explored whether natural polyploidization in Dianthus broteri complex resulted in substantial changes in global DNA cytosine methylation associated to ploidy.
Global cytosine methylation was...
Premise of the study:
Changes in the pollinator communities of marginal plant populations can affect their pollination quantity or quality. Geographic variation in pollination success can alter the reproductive advantage that female plants require to persist within gynodioecious populations. Particularly valuable is determining the pollination suc...
Pollen deposition and pollen tube formation are key components of angiosperm reproduction but intraspecific variation in these latter two has been rarely quantified. Documenting and partitioning (populations, plants and flowers) natural variation in these two aspects of plant reproduction can help uncover spatial mosaics of reproductive success and...
Premise of the study:
Coflowering plants are at risk for receiving pollen from heterospecifics as well as conspecifics, yet evidence shows wide variation in the degree that heterospecific pollen transfer occurs. Evaluation of patterns and correlates of among- and within-species variation in heterospecific pollen (HP) receipt is key to understandin...
Background and aims:
Studies that have evaluated the effects of heterospecific pollen (HP) receipt on plant reproductive success have generally overlooked the variability of the natural abiotic environment in which plants grow. Variability in abiotic conditions, such as light and water availability, has the potential to affect pollen-stigma intera...
Methylation of DNA cytosines affects whether transposons are silenced and genes are expressed, and is a major epigenetic mechanism whereby plants respond to environmental change. Analyses of Methylation-Sensitive Amplification Polymorphism (MS-AFLP or MSAP) have been often used to assess methyl-cytosine changes in response to stress treatments and,...
DNA cytosine methylation is a widespread epigenetic mechanism in eukaryotes, and plant genomes commonly are densely methylated. Genomic methylation can be associated with functional consequences such as mutational events, genomic instability or altered gene expression, but little is known on interspecific variation in global cytosine methylation in...
Yeasts frequently colonise floral nectar, where they can reach high densities. Recent investigations have further shown that yeast metabolism alters nectar properties by decreasing its total sugar content, modifying sugar composition, or raising nectar local temperature. However, the distribution patterns of nectar yeasts remain poorly investigated...
Unlabelled:
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Premise of the study:
Few studies have examined how epigenetic modifications of DNA may influence individual plant phenotypes and ecological processes in wild plant populations. We investigated natural variation in global DNA cytosine methylation and its phenotypic correlates in the perennial herb Helleborus foetidus.•
Methods:
W...
In sexually polymorphic plant species the extent of gender divergence in floral morphology and phenology may be influenced by gender-specific selection patterns imposed by pollinators, which may change geographically. Distribution margins are areas where changes in the pollinator fauna, and thus variation in gender divergence of floral traits, are...
Background and Aims Insufficient pollination is a function of quantity and quality of pollen receipt, and the relative contribution of each to
pollen limitation may vary with intrinsic plant traits and extrinsic ecological properties. Community-level studies are essential
to evaluate variation across species in quality limitation under common ecolo...
Angiosperms evolved different systems to attract effective pollinators while reducing selfing in hermaphroditic flowers. Selfing ability can be advantageous when pollinators and/or mates are scarce, although inbreeding depression may largely reduce those advantages. Recent comparative analyses suggested endemic species tend to evolve self-compatibi...
Several ecological conditions and processes occurring naturally in plant populations may lead to spatial aggregation of sexes within populations of sexually polymorphic species. In addition, ecological disturbances such as forest management or fire could also affect the spatial distribution of sexes within populations. Spatial aggregation of sexes...
Distribution margins constitute areas particularly prone to random and/or adaptive intraspecific differentiation in plants. This trend may be particularly marked in species discontinuously distributed across mountain ranges, where sharp geographic isolation gradients and habitat boundaries will enhance genetic isolation among populations. In this s...
Understanding how pollination affects plant reproductive success and how changes in pollination service affect plant populations, communities and ecosystems is of increasing concern. Yet supplemental hand‐pollination traditionally used to assess pollen limitation is prohibitive for large‐scale comparative work. Moreover, it does not differentiate b...
Distribution margins constitute areas particularly prone to random and/or adaptive intraspecific differentiation in plants. This trend may be particularly marked in species discontinuously distributed across mountain ranges, where sharp geographic isolation gradients and habitat boundaries will enhance genetic isolation among populations. In this s...
Current evidence suggests that plants in biodiversity hotspots suffer more from pollen limitation of reproduction than those in lower diversity regions, primarily due to the response of self-incompatible species. Species in biodiversity hotspots may thus be more at risk of limited reproduction and subsequent population decline. Should these species...
We evaluated the responses of three generalist herbivores (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) to the most abundant coumarin in young leaves of spurge-laurel, Daphne laureola L. (Thymelaeaceae), a perennial shrub consistently fed upon by several noctuid species. Pseudenargia ulicis Staud and Noctua janthe Borkhausen are natural herbivores of the species in sou...
Daphne laureola (Thymelaeaceae) est un arbuste gynodioïque à floraison hivernale qui habite le sous-étage de forêts ombragées de montagne. Ses petites fleurs jaunâtre-vertes peu visibles sont pollinisées par des insectes ectothermiques dont l'activité est principalement limitée aux rares périodes de temps ensoleillé. Nous avons évalué les hypothèse...
Species that exhibit among-population variation in breeding system are particularly suitable to study the importance of the ecological context for the stability and evolution of gender polymorphism. Geographical variation in breeding system and sex ratio of Daphne laureola (Thymelaeaceae) was examined and their association with environmental condit...
Variation in nectar chemistry among plants, flowers, or individual nectaries of a given species has been only rarely explored, yet it is an essential aspect to our understanding of how pollinator-mediated selection might act on nectar traits. This paper describes variation in nectar sugar composition in a population of the perennial herb Helleborus...
Gynodioecy is a dimorphic breeding system in which hermaphrodite and female individuals coexist in populations. Sex ratio and gender-relative lifetime seed production determine the stability of gynodioecy, and both genetic and ecological factors may influence these parameters. I analyzed the consequences of variation in population sex ratio and sit...
In this article, we analyzed the concentration of coumarins in leaves of female and hermaphrodite individuals of the gynodioecious shrub Daphne laureola, along an elevational gradient in southern Spain. Combining HPLC and NMR techniques, we identified three different glycosides of 7-methoxycoumarin in leaves of this species. Total coumarin concentr...
Although in gynodioecious populations male steriles require a fecundity advantage to compensate for their gametic disadvantage, southern Spanish populations of the long-lived shrub Daphne laureola do not show any fecundity advantage over hermaphrodites in terms of seed production and early seedling establishment. By using allozyme markers, we asses...
The scarcity and unpredictability of active pollinators during late winter in temperate areas tends to favour extended flowering seasons and increased floral longevity in early blooming species, which are usually pollinated by diverse sets of insects. Daphne laureola is a gynodioecious woody perennial that flowers from January to April in southern...
Summary • Here, we studied patterns of covariation of 10 leaf nutrients in expanding and mature leaves of the evergreen shrub Daphne laureola (Thymelaeaceae) in southern Spain. Changes in mean values and covariances of nutrients during leaf develop- ment may be relevant for plant fitness through herbivory if variation in leaf nutrients influences p...
The outcome of plant-animal interactions in dioecious plant species frequently depends on the gender of the plant individuals. It has even been proposed that these interactions could mediate the evolution of plant reproductive systems from hermaphroditism to dioecy. Gynodioecy is the most frequent intermediate stage in this evolutionary process, ho...
The diversity of structures of plant phenolic compounds suggests that their interactions with insect herbivores may be compound specific. In this study, we modified the natural covariances observed in mature leaves of mountain birch, Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii (Orlova) Hmet-Ahti, by supplying gallic acid, the common precursor of gallotannin...