J. Velasco

• Professor in Ecology
• Professor at University of Murcia

Organisms in dynamic environments like supratidal rockpools, exposed to extreme fluctuations of salinity and water levels, with periods of complete drought, have evolved diverse strategies to manage desiccation and osmotic stress, involving various physiological and behavioural adaptations. Under a multiple-stress context, exposure to a particular...

Temperature significantly impacts ectotherm physiology, with thermal tolerance and metabolic traits typically varying with latitude across species ranges. The drivers of this variation remain unclear, however, despite obvious consequences for population persistence and conservation in the face of ongoing global change. This study explored local ada...

Simple Summary We studied the flight dispersal of two congeneric beetle species (Ochthebius quadricollis and Ochthebius lejolisii) living in Mediterranean coastal rockpools; temporary and fragmented habitats with extreme environmental conditions (high salinity, high temperature, and strong desiccation). We used a multi-approach (experimental flying...

Las riberas fluviales cumplen un papel crucial en términos de conservación de la biodiversidad y provisión de servicios ecosistémicos, tanto en ríos permanentes como intermitentes. Además, la vegetación ribereña es un elemento clave para la detección y el análisis de los impactos humanos en los ecosistemas acuáticos. Pese a la prevalencia de los rí...

Coastal habitats are amongst the most dynamic on Earth, due to their simultaneous exposure to terrestrial, oceanic and atmospheric processes. Coastal taxa are therefore often ecologically specialised and adapted to withstand frequent shifts in sea level, wave exposure, temperature or salinity. This specialisation often resulting in significant cryp...

Simple Summary Supratidal rockpools stand out as some of the most extreme environments on the planet. These pools are exposed to the wave’s action, fluctuations in sea level, dramatic shifts in water temperature, high salinity levels, desiccation, and intense sunshine. As a result, only a handful of species can survive there, with aquatic beetles o...

High mountain areas are especially vulnerable to global warming, as they experience faster temperature changes than lowlands in a climate change context. Notably, increased temperatures and frequency of extreme flooding and droughts, and the consequent decrease in ice cover and water availability fluctuations, will induce important physical changes...

Here we focused on the co-occurrence pattern on regional and local scales, and on the niche differences of two species of congeneric beetles (Ochthebius quadricollis and O. lejolisii, Hydraenidae) exclusive of supratidal rockpools. Abundances of adults and larval stages from both species and environmental variables were obtained in 10 pools from 12...

Determining the saline niche of the congeneric and co‐existing species that inhabit supralittoral rockpools subjected to extremely fluctuating saline conditions is a crucial concern to understand their spatial distributions and occurrence, and to predict their ability to face increasing environmental instability due to climate change. Therefore, we...

The knowledge of the life cycle of species occurring in extreme environments such as supratidal rockpools is crucial to better understand mechanisms enabling their coexistence and to predict the species responses to climate change. Here, we compared the life cycle of two Ochthebius species (O. lejolisii and O. quadricollis) living on the Iberian Me...

The immune response represents a suite of evolved traits that can involve energetic and evolutionary trade‐offs with other energy‐demanding and fitness‐related processes. Here, we tested the hypothesis that aquatic beetles living in inland hypersaline habitats have lower immune capacity than freshwater congeners. Phenoloxidase activity, encapsulati...

The supralittoral rockpools, on the land and sea ecotone, are highly dynamic habitats with extreme conditions. The few and exclusive species living there are subjected to multiple stressors (i.e., salinity, temperature, desiccation). Among them, several species of the genus Ochthebius (Coleoptera: Hydraenidae) are frequently cooccurring. Whether fu...

The conservation of freshwater biodiversity is one of the main challenges for this century, especially in Mediterranean ecosystems. This study aims to improve the knowledge on the aquatic macroinvertebrates of the Sierra Espuña Regional Park, one of the protected spaces of higher interest in the Iberian southeast. Through field sampling and bibliog...

Morphologically cryptic lineages confound many estimates of global biodiversity and are often discovered in ecologically specialized taxa, subject to strong morphological constraint. Such a situation may apply in many extreme environments, including supralittoral rockpools, where dramatic fluctuations in water availability and salinity impose stron...

Morphologically cryptic lineages confound many estimates of global biodiversity and are often discovered in ecologically specialized taxa, subject to strong morphological constraint. Such a situation may apply in many extreme environments, including supralittoral rockpools, where dramatic fluctuations in water availability and salinity impose stron...

In the context of global change, it is important to know species’ physiological limits and their behavioural responses to environmental changes, especially those living in extreme environments like rockpools. Our main study objective was to determine the thermal tolerance of three beetle species (Ochthebius quadricollis, O. subinteger, O. lejolisi...

The alien aquatic hemipteran Trichocorixa verticalis verticalis (Corixidae), has been found in Región de Murcia (Spain) for the first time. An isolated male was detected in a small supratidal rockpool at Cala Reona (Cabo de Palos, Cartagena).

GARCÍA-MESEGUER AJ, MIRÓN-GATÓN JM, BOTELLA-CRUZ M, MILLÁN A, & VELASCO J. Environmental variables influencing abundance of two congeneric water beetles species from supratidal rockpools. 14th International Conference Of The ISSRL (International Society Of Salt Lake Research) (18-22 October 2021, Murcia, Spain): Supratidal rockpools are singular a...

Simple Summary Desiccation resistance and physiological plasticity are key traits for species persistence in the context of aridification under global change. One of the main mechanisms of desiccation resistance in insects is the control of cuticular transpiration through changes in the quantity and composition of epicuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs),...

In memoriam to Ignacio Ribera (1963-2020)L

Invasive species are among the top five causes of biodiversity loss worldwide. Arundo donax has progressively colonized the riparian zones of Mediterranean rivers with detrimental effects on terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity, being catalogued as one of the 100 worst invasive species. In order to control this invasive species and restore native r...

Accurate assessments of species' vulnerability to climate change require integrated measurements of its different drivers, including extrinsic (the magnitude and rate of climate change) and intrinsic factors (organisms' sensitivity and adaptive capacity). According to these factors, aquatic insects restricted to alpine ponds may be especially threa...

Desiccation resistance is critical to the survival of the insect species of supralitoral rockpools, subjected to short hydroperiod and strong variation of water temperature and salinity. These environments are inhabited by some specialized groups of aquatic beetles, all belonging to the genus Ochthebius (Family Hydraenidae), as O. quadricollis and...

Salinity tolerance has enabled the colonization of inland saline waters and promoted species diversification in some lineages of aquatic insects. However, the mechanisms behind this tolerance, particularly the role of cuticle hydrocarbons (CHCs), are not well-known. We characterized the CHC profile of eight species of two water beetle genera (Nebri...

1. Running waters in Mediterranean regions are strongly regulated by dams, which produce significant alterations to natural flow regimes. Climate change will reduce discharge and increase flow intermittence in Mediterranean streams, which will lead to an intensified flow regulation to meet water demands. Very little is known about how the functiona...

TS.07-P-4. External pavilion, Poster session 2: Wednesday 6th - Thursday 7 th Feb. Page 188 Book of Abstracts – 1st Iberian Ecological Society & XIV AEET Meeting (Spain). Book of abstract. Doi.: 10.7818/SIBECOLandAEETmeeting.2019. http://www.aeet.org/mm/file/Abstract%20Book%20SIBECOL2019.pdf

Abiotic stress shapes how communities assemble and support ecological functions. However, it remains unclear whether artificially increasing or decreasing stress levels would lead to communities assembling predictably along a single axis of variation or along multiple context-dependent trajectories of change. In response to stress intensity alterat...

Considering how organisms adapt to stress is essential if we are to anticipate biological responses to global change in ecosystems. Communities in stressful environments can potentially be assembled by specialists (i.e. species that only occur in a limited range of environmental conditions) and/or generalist species with wider environmental toleran...

Under global change, the ion concentration of aquatic ecosystems is changing worldwide. Many freshwater ecosystems are being salinized by anthropogenic salt inputs, whereas many naturally saline ones are being diluted by agricultural drainages. This occurs concomitantly with changes in other stressors, which can result in additive, antagonistic or...

Naturally stressed ecosystems hold a unique fraction of biodiversity. However, they have been largely ignored in biomonitoring and conservation programmes, such as the EU Water Framework Directive, while global change pressures are threatening their singular values. Herewe present a framework to classify and evaluate the ecological quality of natur...

Evolutionary novelties may influence the diversification of new lineages, allowing species to colonize new habitats or to exploit new resources. One of the most remarkable traits in primarily freshwater organisms is the possibility to tolerate saline or hypersaline habitats. Recent work in some water beetle families (Hydrophilidae and Dytiscidae) h...

Twenty years ago, Keith Miller, David Bilton and Hans Fery (1997) published a checklist of Hydradephaga from Cyprus. There have been no updates since then, and there are also no recent checklists of other families of water beetles from the island. In April 2016 AV, IR, JV & AM conducted a six-day collecting trip to Greek Cyprus, focussing on saline...

Transitions from fresh to saline habitats are restricted to a handful of insect lineages, since the colonization of saline waters requires specialized mechanisms to deal with osmotic stress. Previous studies have suggested that tolerance to salinity and desiccation could be mechanistically and evolutionarily linked, but the temporal sequence of the...

Hydrocarbons are the principal component of insect cuticle and play an important role in maintaining water balance. Cuticular impermeability could be an adaptative response to salinity and desiccation in aquatic insects; however, cuticular hydrocarbons have been poorly explored in this group and there are no previous data on saline species. We char...

Raw data

Total, absolute (ng/specimen) and relative abundance (%) of the cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) identified by GC/MS in the two studied species, for each life stage KI, Kovat index; n, number of larvae, males and females of the total analyzed where the compound is present.

Hydrocarbons are the principal component of insects cuticle and play an important role in maintaining water balance. Cuticular impermeability could be an adaptative response to salinity and desiccation in aquatic insects; however, cuticular hydrocarbons have been poorly explored in this group and there are no previous data on saline species. We cha...

Hydrocarbons are the principal component of insects cuticle and play an important role in maintaining water balance. Cuticular impermeability could be an adaptative response to salinity and desiccation in aquatic insects; however, cuticular hydrocarbons have been poorly explored in this group and there are no previous data on saline species. We cha...

Biological invasions have become one of the most important drivers of biodiversity loss and ecosystem change world‐wide. However, it is still unclear how invasions may interact with local abiotic stressors, which are expected to increase as global change intensifies. Furthermore, we know little about the response to biological invasions of insects,...

Exposing organims to a particular stressor may enhance tolerance to a subsequent stress, when protective mechanisms against both stressors are shared. Such cross-tolerance is a common adaptive response in dynamic multivariate environments and often indicates potential co-evolution of stress traits. Many aquatic insects in inland saline waters from...

The authors revise some of the main areas of insect conservation in the context of the global climate change, such as the identification of the main drivers of insect species vulnerability, and also the role of protected areas to preserve insect diversity in future. From the discussion of some of the recent bibliography, some landmarks are identifi...

Ongoing climate change is driving dramatic range shifts in diverse taxa worldwide, and species responses to global change are likely to be determined largely by population responses at geographical range margins. Here we investigate the metabolic and reproductive plasticity in response to water temperature and salinity variation of two populations...

Background Desiccation resistance shapes the distribution of terrestrial insects at multiple spatial scales. However, responses to drying stress have been poorly studied in aquatic groups, despite their potential role in constraining their distribution and diversification, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. Methods We examined desiccation...

Summary of variation in desiccation resistance traits in control and treatment groups of Enochrus species

Experimental procedure and variables measured in desiccation experiments

Raw data obtained in desiccation experiments and variables used for statistical analyses

Information on the physiological tolerance of species is essential when forecasting their responses to climatic change, especially for those with restricted distributions, as well as those inhabiting extreme environments, such as inland saline waters. Temperature and salinity are expected to increase in these ecosystems under climate change, and bo...

There is an urgent need to track how natural systems are responding to global change in order to better guide management efforts. Traditionally, taxonomically based metrics have been used as indicators of ecosystem integrity and conservation status. However, functional approaches offer promising advantages that can improve bioassessment performance...

Background. Desiccation resistance shapes the distribution of terrestrial insects at multiple spatial scales. However, responses to desiccation stress have been poorly studied in aquatic groups, despite their potential role in constraining their distribution and diversification, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. Methods. We examined desic...

Background. Desiccation resistance shapes the distribution of terrestrial insects at multiple spatial scales. However, responses to desiccation stress have been poorly studied in aquatic groups, despite their potential role in constraining their distribution and diversification, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. Methods. We examined desic...

Abstract: The introduction of exotic species has a major impact on a wide range of ecosystems, especially in aquatic ecosystems. Trichocorixa v. verticalis (Fieber, 1851), an euryhaline aquatic hemipteran native North America, has occurred as an exotic species in the Iberian Peninsula since at least 1997. In this study, we compared several physiolo...

Understanding and predicting ecosystem responses to multiple environmental pressures is a long‐standing interest in ecology and environmental management. However, few studies have examined how the functional features of freshwater biological communities vary along multiple gradients of environmental stress. Furthermore, modelling these functional f...

Conservation interest of Ramsar wetlands in peninsular Spain according to their water beetle communities Abstract: We studied the aquatic Coleoptera communities of 71 wetlands designated as "Ramsar Wetlands" in peninsular Spain. It has been designed and applied the index ICC (Index of Conservation interest based on Coleoptera). This index uses crit...

Among the variety of Mediterranean aquatic habitats, inland saline ecosystems are considered particularly rare and have been much less studied than other freshwater systems. Previous research has emphasised the ecological and evolutionary singularity of these environments and their great conservation value, as they are extremely endangered and also...

In Southeastern Spain, the control of Exotic Invasive Species (EIS) invading riparian habitats is based mostly on short-lived, intensive eradication campaigns. Project LIFE 13 BIO/ES/001407 RIPISILVANATURA (2014-2019), co-funded by the European Commission, adopts a new approach which combines low-intensity restoration and ecological engineering tec...

Protected area networks represent one of the mainstays of global conservation polices and are therefore central to current efforts to maintain biodiversity. However, a major limitation of most conservation strategies is their bias towards particular taxonomic groups and ecosystems, meaning that many taxa and habitats are often only incidentally pro...

Se describen las acciones preparatorias y de seguimiento incluidas en el proyecto LIFE 13 BIO/ES/001407 RIPISILVANATURA (2014-2019), liderado por la Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura, cuyo objetivo principal es recuperar el bosque de ribera del río Segura mediante la protección y restauración de los hábitats riparios y el control de las especie...

A better knowledge of the physiological basis of salinity tolerance is essential to understanding the ecology and evolutionary history of organisms that have colonized inland saline waters. Coleoptera are amongst the most diverse macroinvertebrates in inland waters, including saline habitats; however, the osmoregulatory strategies they employ to de...

The effect of stressors on biodiversity can vary in relation to the degree to which biological communities have adapted over evolutionary time. We compared the responses of functional features of stream insect communities along chronic stress gradients with contrasting time persistence. Water salinity and land-use intensification were used as examp...

What environmental variables determine riparian vegetation patterns? Are there differences between woody and herbaceous species? To answer these questions, we first explored the composition and richness patterns of both riparian woody and herbaceous species in a semi-arid mediterranean basin. Then, we assessed the environmental factors (climate, ge...

##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##

##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##

##Assembly-Data-START## Sequencing Technology :: Sanger dideoxy sequencing ##Assembly-Data-END##

Salinity is one of the most important drivers of the distribution, abundance and diversity of organisms. Previous studies on the evolution of saline tolerance have been mainly centred on marine and terrestrial organisms, while lineages inhabiting inland waters remain largely unexplored. This is despite the fact that these systems include a much bro...

Water salinity and ionic composition are among the main environmental variables that constrain the fundamental niches of aquatic species, and accordingly, physiological tolerance to these factors constitutes a crucial part of the evolution, ecology, and biogeography of these organisms. The present study experimentally estimated the fundamental sali...

AIM: We hypothesised that mechanisms underlying beta-diversity in rivers would differ between gradients where i) natural stressors result in progressive species turnover with high specificity and ii) anthropogenic stressors result in the loss of specialist taxa thus giving rise to nestedness. LOCATION: Great Britain, Iberian Peninsula and the Himal...

The investigation of flow–ecology relationships constitutes the basis for the development of environmental flow criteria. The need to understand hydrology–ecology linkages in natural systems has increased owing to the prospect of climate change and flow regime management, especially in water-scarce areas such as Mediterranean basins. Our research q...

Invasions of alien species are considered among the least reversible human impacts, with diversified effects on aquatic ecosystems. Since prevention is the most cost-effective way to avoid biodiversity loss and ecosystem problems, one challenge in ecological research is to understand the limits of the fundamental niche of the species in order to es...

Climatic variables. Set of Bioclimatic variables considered. Variables were derived from the monthly data. A quarter is a period of three months (1/4 of the year). (DOC)

El actual cambio climático constituye una de las principales amenazas para el futuro de la biodiversidad. A pesar de que recientemente se han realizado numerosos estudios evaluando los efectos del cambio climático sobre la biodiversidad, esta información apenas se ha traducido en propuestas de gestión concretas que permitan minimizar su impacto sob...

1. As species' physiological breadth determines their potential to deal with environmental changes, and influences individuals' survival and the persistence of populations, information about lethal and sublethal responses could be fundamental for conservation purposes. 2. We used a standard experimental approach to explore mortality and behavioural...

1. We test the hypothesis that the physiological tolerance of corixids for saline conditions determines, at least partially, their occurrence along a salinity gradient that encompasses a variety of anionic compositions. 2. Three species of Sigara, S. nigrolineata (fresh waters), S. scripta (hyposaline waters) and S. selecta (mesosaline and hypersal...

Natural flow regimes are of primary interest in designing environmental flows and therefore essential for water management and planning. The present study discriminated natural hydrologic variation using two different environmental classifications (REC-Segura and WFD-ecotypes) and tested their agreement with an a posteriori (hydrologic) classificat...

The investigation of empirical regional flow-ecology relationships constitutes the basis for the development of environmental flow criteria and water resource management. In this sense, the need to understand ecology-hydrology linkages in natural systems, and define reference conditions against which modified systems can be compared, has increased...