Juan Lorite

University of Granada | UGR · Department of Botany

According to the new findings on the phylogeny of the genus Erysimum, we propose the new combination Erysimum bastetanum (G. Blanca & C. Morales) Lorite et al. comb. & stat. nov.

The Baetic mountains, located in the southern Iberian Peninsula, is a major hotspot of biodiversity in the Mediterranean Basin, constituting one of the most important glacial refugia for vascular plants in Europe. Despite their relatively limited extension, the Baetic Mountains contain almost 50% of the total endemic Erysimum species in the Iberian...

It is widely assumed that floral diversification occurs by adaptive shifts between pollination niches. In contrast to specialized flowers, identifying pollination niches of generalist flowers is a challenge. Consequently, how generalist pollination niches evolve is largely unknown.We apply tools from network theory and comparative methods to invest...

Background and AimsHow generalist plants diverge in response to pollinator selection without becoming specialized is still unknown. This study explores this question, focusing on the evolution of the pollination system in the pollination generalist Erysimum mediohispanicum (Brassicaceae).Methods Pollinator assemblages were surveyed from 2001 to 201...

Purpose Soil pollution is a major problem worldwide. Some anthropogenic activities, such as mining, may exceed soil capacity, causing relevant health and ecosystem hazards. The use of mineral amendments can help reduce soil pollution. Gypsum mining spoil (GS) is a waste material highly produced in gypsum mining industry, which has never been used i...

The present study evaluates the effectiveness of remediation treatments applied to residual polluted soils affected by the Aznalcóllar mining spill occurred in 1998 (SW Spain). For this purpose, the influence of the treatments on the main soil properties and on the evolution of natural vegetation was studied. The results showed that amendments appl...

Sierra NevadaSierra Nevada, comprising 2348 vascular floraFlora taxa (including 95 endemic taxa) is considered one of the most important plant hotspotsHot-spot within the Mediterranean region. Sierra NevadaSierra Nevada presents 362 taxa inhabiting the alpine area (ca. 242 km2), 75 endemic species (62 endemic plus 13 sub-endemic) among them, consti...

The Sierra NevadaSierra Nevada massif is a hotspotHot-spot nested within a biodiversityBiodiversityhotspotHot-spot in the Western Mediterranean (the Baetic-Rifian range, divided by the Strait of Gibraltar), which in turn is found within one the hottest spots in the World, the Mediterranean Basin. The geographic, geomorphological, geological and cli...

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we...

Rosmarinus officinalis advantageously competes with other species in restored gypsum outcrops, and further research is needed to understand the causes. Specifically, we focus on the potential allelopathic effects derived from its terpenes on the emergence of gypsum species. To this end, we established 120 circular subplots in a previously restored...

El espacio natural de Sierra Nevada, se encuentra en uno de los territorios con mayor porcentaje de especies exclusivas de nuestro continente, más del 10 % de la flora de Andalucía es endémica. En este cuaderno fotográfico se muestra los táxones endémicos más interesantes que singularizan este gran macizo montañoso. In the Natural and National Park...

Restoration of degraded drylands is urgently needed to mitigate climate change, reverse desertification and secure livelihoods for the two billion people who live in these areas. Bold global targets have been set for dryland restoration to restore millions of hectares of degraded land. These targets have been questioned as overly ambitious, but wit...

Overgrazing stands out as threat factors on biodiversity, being especially harmful in the Mediterranean, due to strong human pressure and an accelerated climate change acting synergistically. Fencing is a common tool used in conservation biology to tackle this problem. Advantages of fences are usually fast, intuitive, and easy to evaluate. However,...

A full list of affiliations appears at the end of the paper. R estoration ecology is rapidly advancing in response to the ever-expanding global decline in ecosystem integrity and its associated socioeconomic repercussions 1-4. Nowhere are these dynamics more evident than in drylands, which help sustain 39% of the world's human population 5 but rema...

Due to the ongoing effects of climate change in the Mediterranean (increasing temperature and decreasing rainfall), conditions for Submediterranean species are disappearing as their habitats are dwindling. We have focused on Euonymus latifolius (L.) Mill., a nemoral-Submediterranean species, at its southernmost populations of Europe. The aim was to...

In recent years, the popularity of rock-climbing has grown tremendously, setting an increasing pressure on cliff habitats. Climbing may be particularly harmful in the Mediterranean biome due to its appropriate environmental conditions for climbing. A few studies have identified the effect of climbing on plant diversity at a small-scale (namely loca...

In recent years, the popularity of rock-climbing has grown tremendously, setting an increasing pressure on cliff habitats. Climbing may be particularly harmful in the Mediterranean biome due to its appropriate environmental conditions for climbing. A few studies have identified the effect of climbing on plant diversity at a small-scale (namely loca...

Overgrazing stands out as threat factors on biodiversity, being especially harmful in the Mediterranean, due to strong human pressure and an accelerated climate change acting synergistically. Fencing is one of the most used tools in conservation biology to tackle this problem. Advantages of fences are usually fast, intuitive, and easy to evaluate....

This Special Issue provides an overview of the current status of plant conservation biology in Spain and other regions around the World. Papers represent selected outstanding presentations made during the 9th Congress of the Spanish Society of Plant Conservation Biology, which took place in Granada (Spain) on July 9-12, 2019. These papers cover dif...

Research in environmental science relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature at around 2 meter above ground1-3. These climatic grids however fail to reflect conditions near and below the soil surface, where critical ecosystem functions such as soil carbon storage are controlled and most biodiversity resides4-8...

The present paper is an overview of state of the art in plant conservation in Mediterranean-type Ecosystems (MTEs), highlighting current studies and neglected topics. A review of the literature dealing with this issue and a general analysis of the results was performed, delving into relevant plant conservation biology topics. The main topics consid...

Climate change impacts are of a particular concern in small mountain ranges, where cold-adapted plant species have their optimum zone in the upper bioclimatic belts. This is commonly the case in Mediterranean mountains, which often harbour high numbers of endemic species, enhancing the risk of biodiversity losses. This study deals with shifts in va...

Degraded ecosystems worldwide are in need of restoration in order to recover essential ecosystem services, promoting biodiversity and enhancing carbon stock. Methods to restore vegetation differ widely in economic cost and effectiveness, but economic evaluations are scarce in the literature. The aim was to perform an economic appraisal of different...

In this paper we present a low-cost approach to mapping vegetation cover by means of high-resolution close-range terrestrial photogrammetry. A total of 249 clusters of nine 1 m2 plots each, arranged in a 3 × 3 grid, were set up on 18 summits in Mediterranean mountain regions and in the Alps to capture images for photogrammetric processing and in-si...

La presencia inicial de los humanos en la alta montaña desde hace poco menos de 8000 años presenta más ele-mentos de domesticación de lo que inicialmente se había estimado. raciones arqueológicas es todavía limitada, hay evidencias de uso de ganado doméstico y, en algunos casos, una probable agricultura utilizando mezcla de cereales a cotas interme...

Current analyses and predictions of spatially‐explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long‐term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate‐forcing factors that operate at fine spatiote...

Providing a complete data set with species and trait information for a given area is essential for assessing plant conservation, management, and ecological restoration, both for local as well as global applications. Also, these data sets provide additional information for surveys or data collections, establishing the starting point for more detaile...

Current analyses and predictions of spatially‐explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long‐term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate‐forcing factors that operate at fine spatiote...

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are a key component of dryland ecosystems worldwide. However, large extensions of biocrusts are disturbed by human activities, gypsum quarry being an outstanding example. Restoration techniques applied have offered satisfactory results for vascular plants but they could greatly differ in promoting biocrust recover...

Introducción a la flora y vegetación de Sierra Nevada (Granada) y descripción de un itinerario botánico por cuatro de los principales parajes naturales de Sierra Nevada

Sierra Nevada ha tenido una amplia y dinámica Historia Natural que ha configurado la importante riqueza, rareza y endemicidad de su flora y vegetación. Representa el centro de diversidad más importante de la Región Mediterránea occidental, un “laboratorio natural” altamente atractivo desde antiguo para naturalistas y botánicos. En la actualidad, es...

RESUMEN Dadas las amenazas actuales sobre la biodiversidad del planeta, es crítico desentrañar los mecanis-mos evolutivos responsables de la formación de los puntos calientes de biodiversidad («hotspots»). Sierra Nevada es un «hotspot» en la cuenca mediterránea, donde una compleja historia geológica y climática ha creado diversos hábitats a los que...

The present work assesses the residual pollution in the Guadiamar Green Corridor (SW, Spain) after a long-term aging process (18 years) since the accident of the Aznalcóllar pyrite mine. We have focused on the study of trace elements (Cu, Zn, Cd, As and Pb) in soils, their fractionation and the transference to the surrounding vegetation. The residu...

Unraveling the relationships between ecological, functional traits and genetic diversity of narrow endemic plants provide opportunities for understanding how evolutionary processes operate over local spatial scales and ultimately how diversity is created and maintained. To explore these aspects in Sierra Nevada, the core of the Mediterranean Betic-...

Biodiversity comprises various levels of biological organisation. Global patterns of biodiversity are well established based on species occurrence. However, functional and historical processes underlying biodiversity patterns have been only recently approached. The increasingly active field of phylogenetics has allowed the rise of phylofloristic st...

Moehringia. sect. Pseudomoehringia McNeill is endemic to the western Mediterranean, having its origin and diversification centre in the Iberian Peninsula and mountains of northern Morocco. Both the relationship with the genus Arenaria as well as the taxonomy within the section have been largely controversial. To disentangle these issues, we conduct...

Background The phylogeny of tribe Brassiceae (Brassicaceae) has not yet been resolved because of its complex evolutionary history. This tribe comprises economically relevant species, including the genus Moricandia DC. This genus is currently distributed in North Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and Southern Europe, where it is associated with arid...

Sequence alignment for the 24-samples set Sequence alignment, in nexus format, of the 24-samples set, including ITS1, ITS2, ndhF and trnT–trnF regions. It also includes the Moricandia sinaica ITS region.

Supplementary information Supplementary information contains: Table S1: GenBank accessions. Table S2: Comparison between the proposed new species Moricandia rytidocarpoides and Rytidocarpus moricandioides (N. Africa) for several quantitative morphological traits. Table S3: Comparison of the proposed new species Moricandia rytidocarpoides with the m...

Sequence alignment for the GenBank-ITS set Sequence alignment (nexus format) for the ITS regions of the GenBank-ITS set.

Rock climbing is among the outdoor activities that have undergone the highest growth since the second half of the 20th century. As a result, cliff habitats, historically one of the least disturbed by human colonization worldwide, are facing more intense human pressure than ever before. However, there is little data on the impact of this activity in...

Results of permanova analysis. Significant values in bold (formula = data_ species ~ Site * Use; permutations = 999). Significant codes for p-values obtained after the GLMMs:. p< 0.1; * p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001. (DOCX)

Results of the permutation test performed after the variables of CCA. CCA1-CCA2 = CCA scores of the first two canonical axes. R2 of the model. P-values obtained after permutation test (n permutations = 999) as follows: **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001. (DOCX)

Sampling dataset. (TXT)

Durante el desarrollo entre los años 2016 y 2017 del Seguimiento de Especies de Flora Amenazadas y de Protección Especial en España (SEFA) a instancias del MAPAMA, a través de TRAGSATEC y SEBiCOP, el equipo de la Universidad de Jaén ha coordinado el estudio de 10 especies. Seis de ellas en 2016: Atropa baetica Willk., Diplazium caudatum (Cav.) Jer...

The loss of biological soil crusts represents a challenge for the restoration of disturbed environments, specifically in particular substrates hosting unique lichen communities. However, the recovery of lichen species affected by mining is rarely addressed in restoration projects. Here, we evaluate the translocation of Diploschistes diacapsis, a re...

The loss of biological soil crusts represents a challenge for the restoration of disturbed environments, specifically in particular substrates hosting unique lichen communities. However, the recovery of lichen species affected by mining is rarely addressed in restoration projects. Here, we evaluate the translocation of Diploschistes diacapsis, a re...

The establishment of gypsicolous vegetation of high conservation value on land impacted by quarrying requires restoration measures to overcome constraints imposed by the new landforms created in the process. The aim of this study was to assess the suitability of three standard hydroseeding methods to restore gypsicolous vegetation on quarry spoil s...

To have an updated checklist available for a given area is crucial for many purposes (educational, conservation, management, etc.). In this paper, a complete and updated checklist of the vascular flora of Sierra Nevada mountain range (SE Spain), a recognized hotspot for plant diversity in the Mediterranean basin, is presented. It includes 2,353 tax...

To have an updated checklist available for a given area is crucial for many purposes (educational, conservation, management, etc.). In this paper, a complete and updated checklist of the vascular flora of Sierra Nevada mountain range (SE Spain), a recognized hotspot for plant diversity in the Mediterranean basin, is presented. It includes 2,353 tax...

Background and aims: Brassicaceae is one of the most diversified families in the angiosperms. However, most species from this family exhibit a very similar floral bauplan. In this study, we explore the Brassicaceae floral morphospace, examining how corolla shape variation (an estimation of developmental robustness), integration and disparity vary...

AFLP matrix.

Appendix. Appendix 1. Probabilities of loss of rare alleles when all populations of Astragalus edulis are considered as one single management unit and preferred sampling area.

GenBank Accession Numbers.

Astragalus edulis (Fabaceae) is an endangered annual species from the western Mediterranean region that colonized the SE Iberian Peninsula, NE and SW Morocco, and the easternmost Macaronesian islands (Lanzarote and Fuerteventura). Although in Spain some conservation measures have been adopted, it is still necessary to develop an appropriate managem...