Juan Carlos Moreno Saiz

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid | UAM · Department of Biology

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List Index (RLI) is used to measure trends in extinction risk of species over time. The development of 2 red lists for Spanish vascular flora during the past decade allowed us to apply the IUCN RLI to vascular plants in an area belonging to a global biodiversity hotspot. We used the Span...

The importance of Natura 2000 network for the conservation of natural habitats, wild flora and fauna at Eu-ropean level is undeniable. However, it may not have reached its full potential since the loss of biodiversity continues to increase year on year. Further on, a third of the plant species listed in the Habitats Directive to guide the declarati...

Motivation We accessed published and unpublished floristic sources to compile a comprehensive species list of the Iberian–Balearic terrestrial vascular flora and generate AFLIBER, an accurate floristic database of georeferenced plant occurrence records. Main type of variable contained Species distribution data totalling 1,824,549 plant occurrence...

Seventeen European endemic plant species were considered extinct, but improved taxonomic and distribution knowledge as well as ex situ collecting activities brought them out of the extinct status. These species have now been reported into a conservation framework that may promote legal protection and in situ and ex situ conservation. Species once c...

Biogeographic regions have been extensively used as reference units in macroecological studies and to prioritize biodiversity conservation efforts. However, classical bioregionalizations were delineated based on taxonomical similarity across space, and thus the importance of historical factors may have been underrated. This limitation may be partic...

The preference of certain plant species for gypsum soils with a patchy distribution leads to disjunct population structures that are thought to generate island-like dynamics potentially influencing biogeographic patterns at multiple evolutionary scales. Here, we study the evolutionary and biogeographic history of Nepeta hispanica, a western Mediter...

The preference of certain plant species for gypsum soils leads to disjunct population structures that are thought to generate island-like dynamics potentially influencing biogeographic patterns at multiple evolutionary scales. Here, we study the evolutionary and biogeographic history of Nepeta hispanica, a western Mediterranean plant associated wit...

Tres especies de plantas acuáticas, que en cada caso sólo conservan una o dos poblaciones en España, acaban de ser catalogadas como "En peligro de extinción" a escala estatal, lo que refuerza su protección legal.

Climate change is a major driver of biodiversity decline with pervasive effects in biodiversity hotspots, where many endemic and threatened species thrive. However, the biological drivers of extinction susceptibility remain largely elusive, which hampers the implementation of effective conservation policies. Here, we advocate for the use of phyloge...

In this contribution the following new nomenclatural combinations for the natural hybrid taxa of Oeosporangium (Pteridaceae: Cheilanthoideae) occurring in the western Mediterranean basin and Canary Islands are proposed: Oeosporangium × ibericum (Rasbach & Reichst.) Arana & Moreno-Saiz, Oeosporangium × insulare (Rasbach & Reichst.) Arana & Moreno-Sa...

Navaea phoenicea (Malvaceae) is a flagship shrub species endemic to Tenerife Island in the Canary archipelago and is included as Endangered on the Spanish Red List. We conducted a comprehensive census and monitored the structure of eight accessible populations over 10 years to develop a stage-based demographic matrix model and performed determinist...

Identificación Hierba anual o bienal. Tallos de 15-60 cm, erectos, pelosos, que parten de una roseta basal de hojas lobu-ladas. Inflorescencia en racimos densos, ebracteados. Flores amarillo pálidas, sobre pedicelos cortos y grue-sos. Frutos 6-11 mm, adpresos, cónicos, a veces curva-dos, comprimidos en el ápice, con valvas de 3 nervios poco marcado...

Endemismo ibérico con dos metapoblaciones separadas más de 500 km, desde la Sierra de Gádor hasta en el Sistema Ibérico. En ambos extremos consta de subpoblaciones fragmentadas, algunas de muy pocos individuos, sometidas a estocasticidad ambiental y demográfica.

Climate change is an important risk factor for the survival of butterflies and other species. In this study, we developed predictive models that show the potentially favourable areas for a lepidopteran endemic to the Iberian Peninsula, the Spanish argus (Aricia morronensis), and its larval food plants, the storksbill (genus Erodium). We used specie...

The increase of the localities of Himantoglossum robertianum in the Community of Madrid region in the last years is studied. We have visited the new discovered populations and characterized their habitats, finding little agreement with the basophilic preferences attributed to the orchid. A model of potential distribution of the taxon has been elabo...

Phylogenetic imputation has recently emerged as a potentially powerful tool for predicting missing data in functional traits datasets. As such, understanding the limitations of phylogenetic modelling in predicting trait values is critical if we are to use them in subsequent analyses. Previous studies have focused on the relationship between phyloge...

Premise of the study: A bird pollination syndrome exists in the Canary Islands archipelago across independent plant lineages despite the absence of specialist birds. The pollination efficiency of current floral visitors remains unknown for many plant species despite this being a fundamental factor in testing hypotheses about the origin of the synd...

Se han elaborado los mapas de distribución de los licófitos y helechos del suroccidente europeo (Andorra, España continental, Portugal continental e Islas Baleares) empleando la malla UTM de 10 km de lado. La síntesis corológica incluye citas bibliográficas y fuentes electrónicas georreferenciadas de acceso público para un total de 128 taxones pres...

Aim: To improve our knowledge of the process of selection of important plant areas (IPAs), a recent requirement of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. The study was conducted at a hotspot of plant conservation in the European continent, using a comprehensive database of plant species distribution in the area. Location: Spain. Methods: We us...

The elaboration of a comprehensive database about the distribution of the South American genus Nassauvia has allowed investigate its conservation biogeography. The combined use of historical (dispersal vicariance analysis) and ecological (UPGMA) biogeographical approaches has led to detecting past, present and future critical areas in the evolution...

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) seeks to assess the conservation status of the world vascular plants by 2020, and to guarantee that at least 75% threatened taxa are conserved in situ. A comprehensive evaluation of IUCN categories for 7269 Spanish vascular plants (GSPC Target 2), using distribution data and environmental niche mode...

Climate change will impact several ecosystems, and the resilience of the weakest links of the ecological networks may be decisive in maintaining the ecological structure. The assessment of tendencies in the distribution and resilience of endangered medicinal species against global change can be an excellent tool to predict and minimize future negat...

Integration of unexpected discoveries about charismatic species can disrupt their well-established recovery plans, particularly when this requires coordinate actions among the different governments responsible. The Critically Endangered Coronopus navasii (Brassica-ceae) was considered a restricted endemism to a few Mediterranean temporary ponds in...

Español. Se han elaborado los mapas de distribución de los licófitos y helechos del suroccidente europeo (Andorra, España continental, Portugal continental e Islas Baleares) empleando la malla UTM de 10 km de lado. La síntesis corológica incluye citas bibliográficas y fuentes electrónicas georreferenciadas de acceso público para un total de 128 tax...

Several genome duplications have been identified in the evolution of seed plants providing unique systems for studying karyological processes promoting diversification and speciation. Knowledge about the number of rDNA loci, together with their chromosomal distribution and structure, provides clues about organismal and molecular evolution at variou...

New data concerning the presence of Coronopus navasii (Brassicaceae) in the Iberian System. Information on two new localities of Coronopus navasii Pau found in the Iberian System is provided. The conservation status of the species in this geographical area is discussed in the light of the last field works.

Ecological theory predicts that fragmentation aggravates the effects of habitat loss, yet empirical results show mixed evidences, which fail to support the theory instead reinforcing the primary importance of habitat loss. Fragmentation hypotheses have received much attention due to their potential implications for biodiversity conservation, howeve...

Information on two new localities of Coronopus navasii Pau found in the Iberian System is provided. The conservation status of the species in this geographical area is discussed in the light of the last field works.

Global climatic change exerts a generalised impact on species ranges, which could be problematic if ecologically-related species differ in their geographical response to climate change. Therefore, a combination of distribution modelling protocols is required to predict the future impacts of global warming on sets of different ecologically-dependent...

En el marco de la Estrategia Global de Conservación Vegetal (GSPC) se ha llevado a cabo la valoración de la conservación in situ de las especies de flora vascular, determinándose si el grado de inclusión de las Áreas Importantes para la Flora (AIF) en espacios protegidos es de al menos el 75% (objetivo séptimo de la GSPC). Esto nos permitirá evalua...

Dendrochronology is useful to determine plant longevity, to provide insights into the structure and dynamics of plant populations and to study the relationships between growth and environmental determinants. The dendrochronology of endangered shrubs is unexplored, although their use represents an opportunity to produce better conservation guideline...

We analysed the distributional pattern of the vascular flora of the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic archipelago using cluster and parsimony methods to delineate a biogeographical scheme for south-western Europe and to compare the results with previous regionalizations. Additionally, we aim to identify areas of endemism. South-western Europe (Iberian...

Demographic monitoring is a well established tool for conservation managers. But, monitoring programs typically do not offer methods to explore the relationship between projected population trends and the probability of trend detection. Moreover, conservation biologists need to evaluate and incorporate the effect of variability and habitat perturba...

Vella pseudocytisus L. is an endemic Iberian-North African species, living in dry or semiarid landscapes on gypsum soils. It possesses a very scattered distribution, comprising populations at southern Aragon, central Tagus valley between Madrid and Toledo, and around the “Hoya de Guadix-Baza” (Granada) within the Iberian Peninsula, and some locatio...

A description of the Spanish vascular flora and its current state of knowledge are provided. These pages show an overview of the origins of the Iberian, Balearic and Canarian floristic elements in the light of recent published works. Updated figures of vascular plant richness and endemism are given, and their geographical diversity patterns are dis...

This book details the methodology used by all research groups in the data gathering for the publication of the "Atlas y Libro Rojo de la Flora Vascular Amenazada de España" (Atlas and Red Book of Threatened Vascular Flora of Spain)

A major focus of geographical ecology and macroecology is to understand the causes of spatially structured ecological patterns. However, achieving this understanding can be complicated when using multiple regression, because the relative importance of explanatory variables, as measured by regression coefficients, can shift depending on whether spat...

En el año 2000 salió publicada la última Lista Roja sobre las plantas vasculares españolas, que evaluaba sus amenazas en todo el país según las categorías de la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (UICN) reformadas en 1994, más cuantitativas y objetivas. Aquel documento dio a conocer la situación de riesgo de 1.414 especies y...

This article delineates the compositional regions present in the Iberian–Balearic fern flora and compares these regions to previously proposed biogeographic units. It also assesses the extent to which environmental variables could explain the regions and the fern species richness gradients found within them. A combination of 40 previously published...

The Iberian Peninsula harbors about 50% of European plant and terrestrial vertebrate species and more than 30% of European endemic species. Despite the global recognition of its importance, the selection of protected areas has been ad hoc and the effectiveness of such choices has rarely been assessed. We compiled the most comprehensive distribution...

We compiled 46 broadscale data sets of species richness for a wide range of terrestrial plant, invertebrate, and ectothermic vertebrate groups in all parts of the world to test the ability of metabolic theory to account for observed diversity gradients. The theory makes two related predictions: (1) In-transformed richness is linearly associated wit...

Concern has been raised regarding the continually changing nature of biotic taxonomies and how these changes alter perceptions of extinction risk and conservation priority setting. Within this realm, we can identify two distinct problems. First, there is a perception that the activity of a new, fine-scale taxonomy may have an effect in the taxonomy...

We present new data about chorology, seed bank, dispersal, seedling biology and population structure of the threatened endemic shrub Vella pseudocytisus subsp. paui Gómez Campo in Spain. In addition, we investigate human activities that are linked with the fine-scale distribution of the taxon to offer conservation recommendations. Currently, the pl...

Species richness and priorities in fern conservation in Iberia and the Balearic Islands

Taxón con dos poblaciones muy localizadas y distantes, que están siendo mermadas, principalmente, por repoblaciones forestales y por la extensión de cultivos agrícolas. Identificación Arbusto de hasta 100 (140) cm, muy ramificado, híspido, fétido. Hojas espatuladas y algo engro-sadas. Flores amarillas en racimos muy numero-sos. Silícula con dos art...