Francisco Martín Azcárate

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Autonomous University of Madrid

Ongoing intensification and fragmentation of European agricultural landscapes have accelerated biodiversity loss and disrupted essential ecological functions. In the Mediterranean region, drove roads, traditionally used for livestock movement, serve a critical ecological role by supporting connectivity and acting as reservoirs for local biodiversit...

Anthropogenic biodiversity decline threatens the functioning of ecosystems and the many benefits they provide to humanity¹. As well as causing species losses in directly affected locations, human influence might also reduce biodiversity in relatively unmodified vegetation if far-reaching anthropogenic effects trigger local extinctions and hinder re...

Amphibians face global population declines due to environmental degradation and habitat loss, particularly impacting breeding water bodies. Thus, we hypothesise that water bodies associated with traditional pastoralist practices, such as those along drove roads used for transhumance (e.g. ponds and troughs), may play a crucial role in supporting am...

Grassland soils, beyond their role as biodiversity reservoirs, actively contribute to the provision of numerous ecosystem services. In the Iberian Peninsula, drove roads, the traditional routes used for seasonal livestock movements in search of the most productive pastures, play a key role in the preservation of semi-natural grasslands and in the p...

https://www.xicongreso.conservacionvegetal.org/libro-del-congreso/

Context Drove roads are landscape corridors traditionally used for livestock movement in many regions of the world, including Spain, where they cover about 0.8% of the land. They have ecological importance due to their role in connectivity, seed dispersal, soil preservation, habitat and biodiversity conservation, and the provision of ecosystem serv...

How farms and the surrounding landscape are managed locally substantially affects biodiversity, with consequent impacts on the supply of certain ecosystem services, such as pollination. Wild bees provide pollination services for small-scale horticultural farming, and are key to determining and improving farm production, as well as maintaining ecosy...

Social parasites usually rely on chemical cues (cuticular hydrocarbons) to successfully invade and coexist with their hosts. Most ants that are obligate social parasites (slave-makers) can parasitize several related host species with different levels of chemical similarity although there are few exceptions where there is only a single host species....

Maestre et al. (Reports, 24 November 2022, p. 915) analyze livestock grazing in global drylands without adequately considering critical ecological, social, and economic variables. Their analysis ignores mobile pastoralism practices and land governance arrangements, critical for sustainable grazing in dry rangelands.

The Edwards’s sand racer (Psammodromus edwarsianus) was recognised as distinct from the Spanish sand racer (P. hispanicus) a decade ago, but both their distributions and interspecific range limits are poorly defined. Results of sampling both species along 70km of the Conquense Drove Road (Central Spain) indicate a clear North/South segregation, wit...

Many aspects of vegetation response to increased drought remain uncertain but it is expected that phenotypic plasticity may be key to early adaption of plants to environmental stress. In this work we observe the response of specific leaf area (SLA) of woody shrub vegetation to the summer drought typical of the Mediterranean climate. In addition, to...

The occurrence of the pine processionary moth (Thaumetopoea pityocampa, hereafter PPM) in Mediterranean pine forests and plantations is of increasing concern as processes such as global warming and forest cover expansion have amplified the frequency and virulence of outbreaks. This study attempts to provide as complete an overview as possible of th...

Temperate grasslands are part of one of the biggest biomes on earth, sustaining high levels of biodiversity and providing multiple ecosystem services. However, the area covered by this open ecosystem is decreasing worldwide, due to several threats like land use change or climate change. Ground-dwelling arthropods are an important group of the commu...

Intensification of agricultural landscapes to fulfil increased global food demands has dramatically impacted biodiversity and ecosystem services. Several pollinator groups, which are vital for the maintenance of pollinator‐dependent crops, have been severely affected by this intensification process. Management tools, such as the implementation of a...

Installing patches of flowering plants is a commonly used strategy to enhance refuge and food resources for pollinators in intensive agricultural landscapes. Here, we evaluated how floral strips and semi-natural habitats impact the taxonomic and functional diversity of wild bees in intensively farmed sunflower fields. Pan traps were used to assess...

1. We address associations of taxonomic diversity (TD), functional diversity (FD), and phylogenetic diversity (PD) of ant assemblages with gradients of elevation to assess whether energetic limitations or deterministic or stochastic niche-building processes are more relevant to the assembly of communities. 2. We sampled ant assemblages using pitfal...

The next reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the period 2021- 2027 (currently extended to 2023-2030) requires the approval by the European Commission of a Strategic Plan with environmental objectives for each Member State. Here we use the best available scientific evidence on the relationships between agricultural practices and bi...

Agri-environmental schemes (AES) of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) aims at reversing the negative effects of agricultural intensification on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Landscape context may modulate, and even constraint, AES effectiveness. We evaluate AES effectiveness on ant abundance, diversity and community composition. Ants are...

Niche overlap and breadth are fundamental characteristics of ecological niches that have been hypothesized to relate both to environmental conditions and to biotic interactions within a community. Abiotic factors and interspecific competition may have opposing effects on those niche characteristics by respectively filtering out species from the nic...

Natural and seminatural habitat remnants play a crucial ecological role in intensified agroecosystems. Assumptions on the conservation value of small and poorly connected fragments in a hostile matrix come from generalization obtained from a limited number of taxa, mostly plants, and vertebrates. To date, few studies have analyzed the effect of fra...

Los afloramientos yesíferos han sido ambientes poco estudiados desde el punto de vista mirmecológico en la Península Ibérica, por lo que se desconoce en gran medida la composición de las comunidades de hormigas allí presentes. Se decidió estudiar los afloramientos de Belinchón por su buen estado de conservación y por la escasez de estudios en Cuenc...

Both intra‐ and interspecific differences in traits may modulate interactions between plants. Two mechanisms are hypothesized to regulate these effects: competitive hierarchies and trait dissimilarities, but it is unclear how the prevalence of each might depend on environmental conditions and on intra and interspecific differences. We sowed six rep...

Habitat fragmentation is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem productivity mediated by direct human impact. Its consequences include genetic depauperation, comprising phenomena such as inbreeding depression or reduction in genetic diversity. While the capacity of wild and domestic herbivores to sustain long-distanc...

Elevational gradients are a powerful tool to investigate how abiotic factors affect ecosystems and to predict the possible consequences of climate change. Here, we investigated the assemblage-level responses of seed size, ant worker size, and rates of seed removal by ants along a 1700 m elevational gradient in Mediterranean grasslands of central Sp...

Background The study of biodiversity spatial patterns along ecological gradients can serve to elucidate factors shaping biological community structure and predict ecosystem responses to global change. Ant assemblages are particularly interesting as study cases, because ant species play a key role in many ecosystem processes and have frequently been...

Nestedness indices for dry grassland ant assemblages in surveys from all study areas in central Spain. Guadarrama range (-G2014- year 2014: 18 grasslands, 35 species; -G2015- year 2015: 6 grasslands, 26 species) and Serrota range (-S2015- year 2015: 6 grasslands, 20 species). Indices are Nestedness metric based on Overlap and Decreasing Fill (NODF)...

Relationships between temperature and elevation. Linear regressions between elevation and mean annual (air) temperature (top left, R2 = 94%), maximum (soil) temperature (top right, R2 = 80%), minimum (soil) temperature (bottom left, R2 = 96%), and mean annual rainfall (bottom right, R2 = 91%). Regressions built for Guadarrama 2014 data (n = 18 site...

Multiple-site dissimilarities of beta diversity. Multiple-site dissimilarities accounting for the spatial turnover (βSIM) and the nestedness components (βNES) of beta diversity, and sum of both values (βSOR) for dry grassland ant assemblages in all study areas in central Spain. G2014: Guadarrama range 2014; G2015: Guadarrama range 2015; S2015: Serr...

Temporal validation of the relationship between nestedness and elevation. Generalized additive model (GAM) of nestedness ranks (based on nestedness temperature index) on elevation in ant assemblages from Guadarrama range (central Spain) fit to Guadarrama 2014 data and validated with Guadarrama 2015 data. (TIF)

Ant species occurrences and environmental characteristics of sampling plots. IDPlot: plot identification. Survey: G2014 for Guadarrama range in 2014, G2015 for Guadarrama range in 2015 and S2015 for Serrota range in 2015. For each sampling plot we give the elevation (in m), latitude and longitude (UTM, datum European 1950), mean annual rainfall (Me...

Spatial validation of the relationship between nestedness and elevation. Generalized additive model (GAM) of nestedness ranks (based on nestedness temperature index) on elevation in ant assemblages from Guadarrama range (central Spain) fit to Guadarrama 2014 data and validated with Serrota 2015 data. (TIF)

1. Agricultural intensification is one of the major drivers behind biodiversity loss in Mediterranean agroecosystems. The intensification of olive groves as monoculture in large areas of the southern Spain have had important effects on biodiversity and ecological processes. 2. We explore the olive grove soil management practices effects on taxonomi...

Habitat fragmentation is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity conservation and productivity, that are mediated by direct human impact. Its consequences include genetic depauperation, including phenomena such as inbreeding depression or reduction in genetic diversity. While the capacity of wild and domestic herbivores to sustain long-distance...

Habitat fragmentation is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity conservation and productivity, that are mediated by direct human impact. Its consequences include genetic depauperation, including phenomena such as inbreeding depression or reduction in genetic diversity. While the capacity of wild and domestic herbivores to sustain long-distance...

The study of biodiversity spatial patterns along ecological gradients can serve to elucidate factors shaping biological community structure and predict ecosystem responses to global change. Ant assemblages are particularly interesting as study cases, because ant species play a key role in many ecosystem processes and have frequently been identified...

Community assembly and coexistence theories predict that both fitness and plant functional traits should influence competitive interactions between native and invasive species. The evolution of the increased competitive ability hypothesis predicts that species will grow larger (a measure of fitness) in their invaded than native range; hence we hypo...

Insects play a key role in the regulation and dynamics of many ecosystem services (ES). However, this role is often assumed, with limited or no experimental quantification of its real value. We examined publication trends in the research on ES provided by insects, ascertaining which ES and taxa have been more intensively investigated, and which met...

Los gradientes altitudinales implican cambios en las condiciones climáticas a escala geográfica pequeña, y por ello constituyen un excelente laboratorio natural para el estudio de la relación entre clima y procesos ecológicos. Este trabajo evalúa la variación en la recolección de semillas con elaiosoma por hormigas en un gradiente altitudinal medit...

See Iberomyrmex 9 (2017): Several species of ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of the genus Aphaenogaster present an unusual behavior consisting of depositing solid materials, such as sand grains, fragments of dried leaves, straws or other kind of debris on liquids offered as bait. This behavior has been defined by the majority of authors who have stu...

Natural and semi-natural habitats within agricultural landscapes provide food and nesting resources for wild bees, thus promoting crop pollination services. In central Spain, a large network of drove roads (DRs) crosses extensive areas of intensive agricultural fields. DRs are tracks (20–75 m wide) with semi-natural vegetation, protected for their...

Trait‐based approaches are increasingly being used to test mechanisms underlying species assemblages and biotic interactions across a wide range of organisms including terrestrial arthropods and to investigate consequences for ecosystem processes. Such an approach relies on the standardized measurement of functional traits that can be applied acros...

Land-use change is the major driver of biodiversity loss. However, taxonomic diversity (TD) and functional diversity (FD) might respond differently to land-use change, and this response might also vary depending on the biotic group being analysed. In this study, we compare the TD and FD of four biotic groups (ants, birds, herbaceous, woody vegetati...

El patrón de distribución biogeográfica de un conjunto de especies puede ser útil para conocer cómo interactúan entre ellas y con el ambiente, así como para anticipar cómo les afectarán cambios futuros como los climáticos. En concreto, el patrón altitudinal de las comunidades de hormigas en pastizales de la Sierra de Guadarrama permite conocer mejo...

La retama negra (Cytisus scoparius, Fam. Leguminosae) es un arbusto cuyas semillas experimentan diplocoria, teniendo una primera fase de dispersión balística (autocoria) y una segunda fase de dispersión por hormigas (mirmecocoria). Este estudio tiene como objetivo determinar las diferencias en el éxito de dicha mirmecocoria en semillas de C. scopar...

QuestionsHow do inter-annual fluctuations in water availability affect the functional trait patterns along spatial gradients of resource availability and disturbance?LocationMediterranean grasslands in central Spain, near Madrid.Methods We surveyed plant communities from 66 sites under different grazing regimes (from heavy grazing to grazing abando...

Ecologists use approaches based on plant functional traits to tackle several fundamental and applied questions. Although a perfect characterization of functional trait structure requires the measurement of all the individuals in communities, this is prohibitively resource‐consuming. Consequently, the general practice is to average the trait values...

Drove roads are a major feature of Mediterranean countries, where this livestock management system has been practiced for centuries. In Spain, many drove roads have become completely or partially abandoned by herders, and transformed for other land uses. Yet, some major drove roads continue to be used for the passage of livestock, and might exert i...

Drove roads are the traditional corridors used by pastoralists for seasonal movements of livestock (transhumance). They cover a considerable land area in Mediterranean countries and, although they are an obvious source of landscape diversity, their influence on the diversity and composition of animal assemblages has not been documented. Ant communi...

Scattered trees in agricultural landscapes are globally declining due to the intensification of agricultural practices. Dehesas, highly species-diverse Mediterranean open woodlands, are seriously affected by this decline, because of a generalized regeneration failure of oak, which compromise their long-term stability. Traditionally, dehesas were th...

What are the effects of traditional drove roads on landscape pattern and plant communities? Madrid Autonomous Region, Central Spain. We selected four study localities in different landscape units. Within each locality, we selected eight sites and within each site, we established three 1-ha plots, each corresponding to one of three situations: drove...

Question What are the effects of traditional drove roads on landscape pattern and plant communities? Location Madrid Autonomous Region, Central Spain. Methods We selected four study localities in different landscape units. Within each locality, we selected eight sites and within each site, we established three 1-ha plots, each corresponding to one...

Changes in livestock grazing regimes are among the most important drivers of species loss and decrease in functional diversity world‐wide. However, taxonomic and functional diversities ( TD and FD ) can respond differently to changes in grazing regime or productivity. We surveyed plant communities from 67 sites under different grazing regimes (from...

1. Abandonment of traditional activities in the rural areas is widespread in the developed world, and in the case of grazing, it is known to have negative consequences on the diversity of plant communities. Few studies have examined the impact of grazing abandonment on fauna, which in the case of ants is of considerable interest, given their useful...

Ants and seeds show a variety of interactions, from generalist seed harvesters to more selective elaiosome-eating ants. Seed harvesting by ants is an interaction typical of non-forested systems from mid and low latitudes. Most aspects of the foraging strategy of harvester ants can be interpreted as a time-saving policy. Ants take advantage of the l...

On the basis of previous research, we predict that Mediterranean grasslands should show larger-seeded annuals in: (1) more-arid grasslands; (2) more-fertile soils; (3) less-grazed grasslands; and (4) grasslands with lower intensities of seed predation by ants. To test these predictions, we set 29 sampling units of 50 m × 50 m in a 1000 km2 grasslan...

Seed dispersal involves several complex stages that can be affected by multiple peripheral processes. Thus, a major dispersal event can be followed by secondary dispersal, which can reduce density-dependent mortality and consolidate the dispersal phase. But predation events can also follow, and predation of seeds in feces is particularly interestin...

Questions: 1. Do harvester ants (Messor barbarus) promote seed mortality in Mediterranean grassland?; 2. Is this effect greater in large-seeded species? Location: Central Spain. Methods: We established an ant-exclusion experiment of five circular (1.5 m diameter) plots from where ants were excluded during one year, along with ten control plots. We...

Questions: 1. Do disturbances by harvester ants ( Messor barbarus L.) affect soil properties? 2. Do they alter seed distribution? 3. Do they show a different species composition? 4 Are these changes related to seed size (length and weight)? Location: Mediterranean grasslands in central Spain, near Madrid. Methods: We recorded autumn seed banks and...

Question: Are seed size and plant size linked to species responses to inter-annual variations in rainfall and rainfall distribution during the growing season in annual grasslands? Location: A 16-year data set on species abundance in permanent plots 15 km north of Madrid in a Quercus ilex subsp. ballota dehesa. Methods: At species level, a GLM was u...

1. We used the composition of nest middens to describe the extent of dietary partitioning in an exceptionally diverse assemblage of harvester ants in the Kakadu region of northern Australia. Eight of the >15 harvester species known from adjacent 30 × 30-m plots, comprising four species of Meranoplus and two species each of Monomorium and Pheidole,...

This paper analyses the effect of microclimatic factors (internal soil temperature, surface temperature and surface relative humidity) on surface activity of Messor barbarus harvester ants. We selected 44 colonies in an area of Mediterranean grassland near Madrid (Central Spain), which were monitored for activity between March 1998 and September 19...

The role of harvester ants in Mediterranean grassland and scrubland has mostly focused on seed consumption. However, recent studies have reported their role as accidental dispersal agents of some of the collected seeds via refuse piles. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of the ant Messor barbarus on seed availability and dispersa...

Many dehesa zones in marginal areas are suffering from the abandonment of traditional farming practices. Herbivore grazing affects grassland dynamics, changing the species colonisation and extinction relationships via consumption, mechanical disturbance, seed dispersal and altered soil fertility due to dung-borne nutrient input. This paper analyses...

Question Is there any change in seed density and species richness in Mediterranean surface soil banks during summer? Are there any relationships between these summer variations and seed traits (weight, length and shape), without and with controlling the phylogenetic effect? Location Central Spain. Methods Samples of the surface soil seed bank wer...

We analyse diet and propagule selection by the harvester ant Messor barbarus (L.) in Mediterranean grassland and scrubland in central Spain. Diet was estimated by the identification of worker‐transported prey in 34 colonies per system type, and compared with seed and fruit availability in the foraging areas. Propagules were characterized by six mor...

Seed germination and emergence are influenced by the position of seeds in the soil bank profile. Mediterranean grasslands are heavily dependent on seed banks, as these systems are mainly composed of annual species. Seed bank germination experiments in a greenhouse were conducted to analyse the role played by burial depth on seed bank dynamics in an...

Seed size and shape, measured as the variance of the three main dimensions, have been proposed as good indicators for predicting seed persistence. We tested whether these variables were robust predictors of seed persistence in the soil for 58 abundant herbaceous species, primarily annuals, in grass and scrubland of central Spain. Seed persistence w...

Summary. Seed predation by harvester ants is one of the main processes involved in the seed bank dynamics of Mediterranean grassland and scrubland. We investigated the spatial patterns of seed predation by Messor spp. in these systems from a multi-level approach (nest-site selection, foraging patch selection and seed predation risk), using ten expe...

We analysed the relationship between seed traits (weight, shape and dispersal structures) and the abundance and habitat segregation of Mediterranean grassland species. To take into account possible correlations with other plant traits, the study also includes 5 vegetative traits (growth form, plant longevity, clonality, onset of flowering and plant...

Although seed weight is a key factor in understanding the reproductive biology of plant species, its value is unknown for a large proportion of the herbaceous species in the Mediterranean basin. This paper presents data on seed weight, dimensions and volume for 1 18 herbaceous species in acidic Mediterranean scrub and grassland in the centre of the...

Although seed weight is a key factor in understanding the reproductive biology of plant species, its value is unknown for a large proportion of the herbaceous species in the Mediterranean basin. This paper presents data on seed weight, dimensions and volume for 1 18 herbaceous species in acidic Mediterranean scrub and grassland in the centre of the...

Summary1. We used the composition of nest middens to describe the extent of dietary partitioning in an exceptionally diverse assemblage of harvester ants in the Kakadu region of northern Australia. Eight of the >15 harvester species known from adjacent 30 × 30-m plots, comprising four species of Meranoplus and two species each of Monomorium and Phe...