Jorge García GirónUniversity of Oulu · Department of Geography
Jorge García Girón
Doctor of Philosophy
Synthesising community biogeography, with special attention to freshwaters. Dinosaur enthusiast too ;-)
About
58
Publications
14,232
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347
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Jorge is an early career ecologist interested in biogeography, macroecology, palaeontology and applied statistics.
He graduated with honours in Environmental Sciences (2012-2016), and has post-graduate studies in Natural Hazards (2016-2017), Education (2017-2018) and Functional Ecology (2018-2021).
Emails: jogarg@unileon.es & jorgeciencia@hotmail.es
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
November 2020 - present
January 2018 - October 2020
July 2014 - January 2018
Education
January 2018 - October 2020
September 2017 - July 2018
September 2016 - July 2017
Publications
Publications (58)
Aim
Metacommunity ecology is a vibrant area of research that has received increased attention in recent years, since it provides a framework to assess the underlying dispersal‐ and niche‐based processes that create non‐random and ecologically meaningful patterns in species assemblages across the landscape. Here we set out to test for the role of di...
Documenting the patterns of biological diversity on Earth has always been a central challenge in macroecology and biogeography. However, for the diverse group of freshwater plants, such research program is still in its infancy. Here, we examined global variation in taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic beta diversity patterns of lake macrophytes u...
Biotic interactions are fundamental drivers governing biodiversity locally, yet their effects on geographical variation in community composition (i.e. incidence-based) and community structure (i.e. abundance-based) at regional scales remain controversial. Ecologists have only recently started to integrate different types of biotic interactions into...
Aim: Understanding the mechanisms underlying the structure and connectivity of ecological communities is a central issue in biogeography. Dispersal syndromes are tightly woven into organisms' life history seen across populations and communities, but measuring dispersal is still complicated in practice. We investigated the role of dispersal syndrome...
Aquatic insects comprise 64% of freshwater animal diversity and are widely used as bioindicators to assess water quality impairment and freshwater ecosystem health, as well as to test ecological hypotheses. Despite their importance, a comprehensive, global database of aquatic insect occurrences for mapping freshwater biodiversity in macroecological...
Anthropogenic disturbances have become one of the primary causes of biodiversity decline in freshwater ecosystems. Beyond the well-documented loss of taxon richness in increasingly impacted ecosystems, our knowledge on how different facets of α and β diversity respond to human disturbances is still limited. Here, we examined the responses of taxono...
Freshwater ecosystems are of worldwide importance for maintaining biodiversity and sustaining the provision of a myriad of ecosystem services to modern societies. Plants, one of the most important components of these ecosystems, are key to water nutrient removal, carbon storage, and food provision. Understanding how the functional connection betwee...
Lakes and ponds are ideal ecosystems to investigate the spatial component of aquatic biodiversity and the structuring mechanisms of biotic communities along altitudinal gradients. However, there is still limited research exploring patterns and determinants of compositional variation in relation to changes in altitude across lentic ecosystems. Here,...
1. A growing body of evidence has shown that biological invasions cause shifts in species composition of communities in space and time. Although biological invasions are considered a major driver of biotic homogenisation worldwide, most previous studies were conducted at small spatial scales and over short time periods, which may have underestimate...
It has long been debated why groups such as non-avian dinosaurs became extinct whereas mammals and other lineages survived the Cretaceous/Paleogene mass extinction 66 million years ago. We used Markov networks, ecological niche partitioning, and Earth System models to reconstruct North American food webs and simulate ecospace occupancy before and a...
Body size is a key ecological trait that plays a significant role in determining the functioning of size-structured freshwater communities (e.g., predator-prey interactions, energy transfer). Furthermore, body size change has been posited as a universal response to global warming. Despite previous research efforts, most studies on zooplankton body...
Environmental filtering, spatial factors and species interactions are fundamental ecological mechanisms for community organisation, yet the role of such interactions across different environmental and spatial settings remains mostly unknown. In this study, we investigated fish community organisation scenarios and seasonal species-to-species associa...
Aim
We propose a novel approach that considers taxonomic uniqueness, functional uniqueness and environmental uniqueness and show how it can be used in guiding conservation planning. We illustrate the approach using data for lake biota and environment.
Location
Lake Puruvesi, Finland.
Methods
We sampled macrophytes and macroinvertebrates from the...
Permanent ponds represent important habitats for aquatic biodiversity and provide vital
ecosystem services as key elements for blue landscape connectivity. Although mostly
neglected in management programmes, protection schemes and biodiversity studies in
general, ponds constitute habitats with high α- and spatial β-diversity, providing unique
habit...
Ponds, whilst being mostly neglected in management and protection plans, can constitute habitats with high α- and β-diversity, including many rare and endemic species. In heterogeneous landscapes, ponds can also contribute to habitat connectivity and enhance γ-diversity whilst delivering many ecosystem services. Semi-aquatic insects are one of the...
Whilst being small and shallow, permanent ponds provide valuable habitats for a multitude
of organisms as well as provide habitats for animals like aquatic insects and others,
including many rare species. These ponds, which were often neglected in limnological
studies, were the core of our joint project, the 3rd freshwater project - EUROPONDS in or...
Aim: The regionalized patterns of biodiversity distributions are actively studied in terrestrial and marine ecosystems, but much less is known on the geographical patterns of ecoregions founded on freshwater taxa. Here, we studied, for the first time, how well existing freshwater ecoregions describe the geographical distribution of inland water pla...
Under a global change scenario, human-induced impacts alter multiple facets of river biodiversity (i.e., taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic). Hence, focusing on changes in community assembly and different diversity dimensions along anthropogenic impact gradients is of paramount importance for ecological research. Here, we classified stream site...
Deterministic and stochastic processes are two major factors shaping community dynamics, but their relative importance remains unknown for many aquatic systems, including those in the high‐elevation Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Here, we explored the causes of multidimensional beta diversity patterns (i.e., taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic) of a ma...
Functional biogeography has advanced the field of functional ecology into a more spatiallypredictive science. However, freshwater plants are still underrepresented in these traitbased advancements. Here, we argue that there is a need for developing a functional biogeographical framework for freshwater plants and initiate global mapping efforts focu...
Body size descriptors and associated resemblance measurements may provide useful tools for forecasting ecological responses to increasing anthropogenic land‒use disturbances. Yet, the influences of agriculture and urbanisation on the size structure of biotic assemblages have seldom been investigated in running waters. Using a comprehensive dataset...
Within the EUROPONDS project we looked into the contribution of aquatic invertebrates to terrestrial ecosystems, which are globally declining, in various countries all over Europe. Our study encompassed a restored quarry in Alpedrete, Madrid, Spain, a landscape destined for livestock activities. We hypothesized that the emergence during autumn and...
Patterns of species rarity have long fascinated ecologists, yet most of what we know about the natural world stems from studies of common species. A large proportion of freshwater plant species has small range sizes and are therefore considered rare. However, little is known about the mechanisms and geographical distribution of rarity in the aquati...
Aim: Range size conservatism suggests that closely-related species maintain geographic ranges of similar extent. However, consensus regarding this suggestion has not been reached. To shed more light on this phenomenon, we studied freshwater plant range size conservatism, range overlap and environmental niche conservatism using congeneric species co...
Diatoms are important organisms in freshwater ecosystems due to their position as primary producers and therefore, analyzing their assemblages provides relevant information on ecosystem functioning. Diatoms have historically been identified based on morphological traits, which is time-consuming and requires well-trained specialists. Nevertheless, D...
A bstract
Aim
Biogeographical regionalisations are actively studied in different ecosystems, because they increase our understanding on fundamental broad□scale patterns and can help us in the establishment of conservation areas. Thus, we studied how well existing freshwater ecoregions describe geographical delineation for inland water plants and w...
Broad-scale studies of species distributions and diversity have contributed to the emergence of general macroecological rules. These rules are typically founded on research using well-known terrestrial taxa as models and it is thus uncertain whether aquatic macrophytes follow these macroecological rules. Our purpose is to draw together available in...
Documenting the patterns and potential associated processes of ancient biotas has always been a central challenge in palaeontology. Over recent decades, intense debate has focused on the organization of dinosaur-dominated communities, yet no general consensus has been reached on how these communities were organized in a spatial context. Here, we us...
Diatoms are important organisms in freshwater ecosystems due to their position as primary producers and therefore, analyzing their communities provides relevant information on ecosystem functioning. Diatoms have historically been identified based on morphological traits, which is time-consuming and requires well-trained specialists. Nevertheless, D...
Community ecology has had a strong focus on single snapshots of species compositional variation in time. However, environmental change often occurs slowly at relatively broad spatio-temporal scales, which requires historically explicit assessments of long-term metacommunity dynamics, such as the order of species arrival during community assembly (i...
Research seems to be an appealing professional path for young graduates with a salient academic record. However, when it comes to the beginning of their professional careers, young researchers face a number of substantial obstacles. Importantly, Ph.D. students will often do their research with no contract, which let them exposed to job insecurity a...
This poster was a contribution by Juan Rubio-Ríos and Encarnación Fenoy from EUROPONDS project to the online Symposium about "Researches in Experimental Sciences" ("IX Simposio de Investigación en Ciencias Experimentales") from University of Almería in Spain.
Documenting the patterns of biological diversity on Earth has always been a central challenge in macroecology and biogeography. However, we are only beginning to generate an understanding of the global patterns and determinants of macrophyte diversity. Here, we studied large-scale variation and community-environment relationships of lake macrophyte...
Understanding patterns of beta diversity (heterogeneity) and its components (substitution and subset) is important for managing freshwater ecosystems and the research on these topics has increased over the last decade. However, there has been limited empirical research exploring the drivers of these components of beta diversity in ponds from agricu...
The degree to which dispersal limitation interacts with environmental filtering has intrigued metacommunity ecologists and molecular biogeographers since the beginning of both research disciplines. Since genetic methods are superior to coarse proxies of dispersal, understanding how environmental and geographic factors influence population genetic s...
Metacommunity ecology has broadened considerably with the recognition that measuring beta diversity beyond the purely taxonomic viewpoint may improve our understanding of the dispersal- and niche-based mechanisms across biological communities. In that perspective, we applied a novel multidimensional approach including taxonomic, functional and phyl...
Ecological metrics constitute one of the mainstream tools in modern ecology to assess varying information about processes and patterns of regional biodiversity. However, the performance of different metrics on Mediterranean pond macrophyte assemblages is still largely unknown, thus hampering the selection of suitable indices for biomonitoring purpo...
Knowledge about the processes determining gene flow and genetic diversity and structure of aquatic populations is essential for assessing the role of dispersal limitation, genetic drift and natural selection on metapopulation dynamics. Hence, understanding how environmental and geographic factors influence population genetic structure is becoming o...
Macrofossils are known as a useful tool in reconstructing their original plant communities. However, most studies have been focused on comparing the composition and distribution of living plant communities and their remains in temperate lakes. Mediterranean shallow lakes have been historically far less studied and little is known about the relation...
We conducted a mesocosm experiment in a Mediterranean shallow lake dominated by Myriophyllum alterniflorum to assess the effects of nutrient enrichment and fish addition on the composition and functional structure of zooplankton assemblages when macrophytes are absent. Fish (Achondrostoma arcasii) and nutrients were added in 9 combinations: 3 fish...
Mediterranean ponds have been historically far less studied than temperate lakes of northern Europe and, for this reason, the availability of historical data is limited for these endangered ecosystems. In the absence of such data, macrofossils from surface sediment may provide highly relevant information concerning modern and past assemblages. Here...
The aim of this study was to explore the environmental drivers of the aquatic macrophyte assemblage in a large, heterogeneous Spanish region covering a wide altitudinal range. We hypothesized that physicochemical variables affecting assemblages would differ depending on altitude. The study was conducted in 46 plateau ponds and 21 mountain ponds. Ou...
Cladoceran subfossils from surface sediments have been recognized as useful and reliable ecological indicators in freshwater ecosystems. Nevertheless, investigations concerning the relationships between contemporary and sedimentary assemblages are scarce in the Mediterranean region and no studies are available from Iberian flatland ponds. Here, we...
Mediterranean shallow lakes are affected by many deterioration processes like eutrophication, land-use changes along its drainage basin and climate change. Aquatic plants are expected to reflect the ecological changes of shallow lakes since they
are in close contact with the environmental factors. We assessed the influence of climate, land use and...
Questions
Question (1)
We are looking for young researchers interested in pond ecology, specifically in aquatic plants. The main goal of our project is to assess whether the strength of spatial processes and local conditions controlling macrophyte diversity patterns and assemblage structure is consistent among different geographical location applying a Pan-European approach.
Please, if anyone is interested write to: jgarcg21@estudiantes.unileon.es
Thanks!!
Projects
Projects (6)
Human activities are causing declines in biodiversity worldwide. To lose species is to lose ecologically unique units that may play complementary roles, varying their contributions to different ecosystem functions. Ecosystems with more preserved functions can provide adequate ecosystem services for human well-being. Understanding how biodiversity loss can alter ecosystems’ functioning has become fundamental in the Anthropocene. However, human activities have also caused global changes such as species invasions and changes in rainfall patterns that can lead to extreme weather events, both of which can have adverse effects on biodiversity and human well-being. There is no doubt that humans directly or indirectly affect the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and thus harm their very existence by not making sustainable use of ecosystem services. Water is crucial in integrating different sustainability dimensions; therefore, it can trigger societal transformations. Therefore, this proposal aims to understand patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem processes in freshwater in the face of human activities and their consequences. These ecosystems often suffer from the pressures of human activities, including biological invasions. Furthermore, we intend to identify the impacts of human activities on aquatic biodiversity and to determine characteristics of the construction of multimetric indices that can assist in detecting these impacts, thus providing information for the definition of priority areas for the mitigation and control of effects of human activities. Considering the 2030 Agenda proposed by the United Nations through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is urgently necessary to integrate the environmental, social, and economic sectors to achieve sustainable development.
The goal of the MAP project is to outline the position of freshwater plants along the major functional axes of plant phenotypes. We set out to document how a life in water selects on the form and functions of freshwater plants and when such adaptations break the general rules of trait-trait and trait-environment relationships derived from terrestrial plant species. To achieve this, we are collecting trait data for more than 3500 non-woody aquatic plant species, covering seven functional traits representing the major plant forms and functions.
More details can be found at http://www.lifeinmud.com/map
EUROPONDS was selected as the 3rd fresh project, a joint call of the European Federation of Freshwater Sciences (EFFS) board and the EFFS Societies as well as the European Fresh and Young Researchers (EFYR) and representatives of the Fresh Blood for Fresh Water (FBFW).
To evaluate the often overlooked ecological contributions and ecosystem services provided by ponds across Europe, we will investigate the taxonomy and biomass (‘biodiversity’) and the energy content and dietary quality, as measured by total lipids and their fatty acids (‘nutritional value for subsequent consumers’) of emerging insects from ponds across Europe.
Funding for this project is provided by the EFFS-federated societies.