Luis Cayuela

Rey Juan Carlos University | URJC · Biology and Geology, Physics and Inorganic Chemistry

Aim: Global-scale studies are necessary to draw general conclusions on how trophicinteractions vary with urbanization and to explore how the effects of urbanizationchange along latitudinal gradients. We predict that the intensity of trophic interac-tions decreases in response to urbanization (quantified by human population density).Since trophic in...

Global biodiversity is negatively affected by anthropogenic climate change. As species distributions shift due to increasing temperatures and precipitation fluctuations, many species face the risk of extinction. In this study, we explore the expected trend for plant species distributions in Central America and southern Mexico under two alternative...

Dominance of neotropical tree communities by a few species is widely documented, but dominant trees show a variety of distributional patterns still poorly understood. Here, we used 503 forest inventory plots (93,719 individuals ≥2.5 cm diameter, 2609 species) to explore the relationships between local abundance, regional frequency and spatial aggre...

Aim Mountains are paramount for exploring biodiversity patterns and their causes due to the rich mosaic of topographies and climates encompassed over short geographical distances. Biodiversity changes along elevational gradients have traditionally been explored in terms of taxonomic diversity, but other aspects must be considered. For first time, w...

Functional traits have gained scientific support as a tool for understanding forests ecosystems and the goods and services they provide to human populations. Investigating how humans use and interact with plants based on their functional traits is crucial to support the long-term provision of plant-based ecosystem services. Here, we have adopted a...

Aim The latitudinal biodiversity gradient is considered a first‐order biogeographical pattern for most taxonomic groups. Latitudinal variation in plant diversity is not always consistent, and this could be related to the particular characteristics of different forest types. In this study, we compare latitudinal changes in floristic diversity (alpha...

Previous attempts to quantify tree abundance at global scale have largely neglected the role of local competition in modulating the influence of climate and soils on tree density. Here, we evaluated whether mean tree size in the world’s natural forests alters the effect of global productivity on tree density. In doing so, we gathered a vast set of...

Elucidating how environmental factors drive plant species distributions and how they affect latitudinal diversity gradients, remain essential questions in ecology and biogeography. In this study we aimed: 1) to investigate the relationships between all three diversity attributes, i.e., taxonomic diversity (TD), functional diversity (FD), and phylog...

Global patterns of regional (gamma) plant diversity are relatively well known, but whether these patterns hold for local communities, and the dependence on spatial grain, remain controversial. Using data on 170,272 georeferenced local plant assemblages, we created global maps of alpha diversity (local species richness) for vascular plants at three...

Measurement(s) Bark thickness • Leaf area • Leaf aluminium (Al) content per leaf dry mass • Specific leaf area • Leaf calcium (Ca) content per leaf dry mass • Leaf carbon (C) content per leaf dry mass • Leaf carbon (C) isotope signature (delta 13 C) • Leaf compoundness • Leaf dry mass per leaf fresh mass (leaf dry matter content, LDMC) • Leaf magne...

El libro va dirigido a estudiantes, profesores e investigadores del ámbito de las ciencias naturales que deseen iniciarse en el mundo de la investigación, entender en profundidad algunas de las principales técnicas de análisis de datos utilizadas en el ámbito de la ecología, o conocer la implementación de dichas técnicas en R, uno de los lenguajes...

A vast literature indicates that environment plays a paramount role in determining floristic composition in tropical forests. However, it remains unclear which are the most important environmental factors and their relative effect across different spatial scales, plant life forms or forest types. This study reviews the state of knowledge on the eff...

Understanding the main causes of biodiversity decline is an essential part of the syllabus of any university-level course in conservation biology. A novel computer-based activity is described for introducing students to using the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List database. The specific objectives of this activity are (1...

Little is known about how much continuous landscape transformation might affect the most vulnerable elements of biodiversity. In this study, we quantified changes in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) over the past 35 years across locations with threatened plants and in Natura 2000 (N2000) protected areas, in an environmentally heter...

Aim Holm oak (Quercus ilex L.) is regarded as a keystone plant species. Trophic interactions may affect the distribution and abundance of phytophagous species, but the number of arthropod species that use holm oak as a food resource and their levels of host specificity are not yet known. Here, we aimed to quantify these species, their feeding strat...

Motivation Assessing biodiversity status and trends in plant communities is critical for understanding, quantifying and predicting the effects of global change on ecosystems. Vegetation plots record the occurrence or abundance of all plant species co‐occurring within delimited local areas. This allows species absences to be inferred, information se...

Previous studies in urban desert ecosystems have reported a decline in avian diversity. Herein, we expand and improve these studies by disentangling the effect of land-use and land-cover (LULC) types (desert, riparian desert, urban, riparian urban, agriculture), vegetation greenness (normalized difference vegetation index—NDVI), climate, and their...

Tropical forests are the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. While better understanding of these forests is critical for our collective future, until quite recently efforts to measure and monitor them have been largely disconnected. Networking is essential to discover the answers to questions that transcend borders and the horizons of...

Gradients in elevation impose changes in environmental conditions, which in turn modulate species distribution and abundance as well as the interactions they maintain. Along the gradient, interacting species (e.g., predators, parasitoids) can respond to changes in different ways. This study aims to investigate how egg parasitism of a forest pest, t...

Prey detection and selection by birds can be influenced by prey coloration. Whereas certain colours can indicate to predators the unpalatability of prey (i.e. aposematism), other colours can render prey cryptic against the background. However, there are discrepancies in the response of birds to prey coloration reported in different studies. Such di...

Distinguising between natural forests from exotic tree plantations is essential to get an accurate picture of the world’s state of forests. Most exotic tree plantations support lower levels of biodiversity and have less potential for ecosystem services supply than natural forests, and differencing them is still a challenge using standard tools. We...

More tree species can increase the carbon storage capacity of forests (here referred to as the more species hypothesis) through increased tree productivity and tree abundance resulting from complementarity, but they can also be the consequence of increased tree abundance through increased available energy (more individuals hypothesis). To test thes...

Many studies have tried to assess the role of both deterministic and stochastic processes in community assembly, yet a lack of consensus exists on which processes are more prevalent and at which spatial scales they operate. To shed light on this issue, we tested two nonmutually exclusive, scale‐dependent hypotheses: (1) that competitive exclusion d...

Our knowledge about the structure and function of Andean forests at regional scales remains limited. Current initiatives to study forests over continental or global scales still have important geographical gaps, particularly in regions such as the tropical and subtropical Andes. In this study, we assessed patterns of structure and tree species dive...

Tropical montane forests (TMFs) play an important role as a carbon reservoir at a global scale. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive understanding on the variation in carbon storage across TMF compartments [namely aboveground biomass (AGB), belowground biomass (BGB), and soil organic matter] along altitudinal and environmental gradients and...

Habitat destruction is the single greatest anthropogenic threat to biodiversity. Decades of research on this issue have led to the accumulation of hundreds of data sets comparing species assemblages in larger, intact, habitats to smaller, more fragmented, habitats. Despite this, little synthesis or consensus has been achieved, primarily because of...

Questions: Vegetation-plot records provide information on presence and cover or abundance of plants co-occurring in the same community. Vegetation-plot data are spread across research groups, environmental agencies and biodiversity research centers, and thus, are rarely accessible at continental or global scales. Here we present the sPlot database,...

Aims: Vegetation-plot records provide information on the presence and cover or abundance of plants co-occurring in the same community. Vegetation-plot data are spread across research groups, environmental agencies and biodiversity research centers and, thus, are rarely accessible at continental or global scales. Here we present the sPlot database,...

Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key r...

Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key q...

Facilitation studies have previously focused on the effects of plant–plant interactions on species richness and, more recently, on functional traits or phylogenetic aspects. Little is known, however, about the simultaneous effects that facilitation have on overall biodiversity, jointly considering taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity. I...

Background: Discrepancies in the shape of the productivity-diversity relationship may arise from differences in spatial scale. We hypothesised that there is a grain size effect on the productivity-diversity relationship. Aims: To determine the effect of three sampling grain sizes on the productivity- diversity relationship. Methods: We applied gen...

Significance Decades of research have fostered the now-prevalent assumption that noncrop habitat facilitates better pest suppression by providing shelter and food resources to the predators and parasitoids of crop pests. Based on our analysis of the largest pest-control database of its kind, noncrop habitat surrounding farm fields does affect multi...

The idea that noncrop habitat enhances pest control and represents a win–win opportunity to conserve biodiversity and bolster yields has emerged as an agroecological paradigm. However, while noncrop habitat in landscapes surrounding farms sometimes benefits pest predators, natural enemy responses remain heterogeneous across studies and effects on p...

Background Canopy structure, defined by leaf area index (LAI), fractional vegetation cover (FCover) and fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR), regulates a wide range of forest functions and ecosystem services. Spatially consistent field-measurements of canopy structure are however lacking, particularly for the tropics. Me...

Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key q...

Research institutions from the Global North have made significant contributions to the knowledge of tropical ecosystems, but contributions have varied greatly between countries. We show that European nations that share a language, cultural affinity, and/or retain social and political ties with tropical countries (e.g., those with an overseas histor...

The study by Bastin et al. (Reports, 12 May 2017, p. 635) is based on an incomplete delimitation of dry forest distribution and on an old and incorrect definition of drylands. Its sampling design includes many plots located in humid ecosystems and ignores critical areas for the conservation of dry forests. Therefore, its results and conclusions may...

Regulation of agricultural pests managing their natural enemies represents an alternative to chemical pesticides. We assessed the potential of insectivorous birds as pest regulators in woody crops located in central Spain. A total of 417 nest boxes installed in five field study sites (one vineyard, two fruit orchards, and two olive groves) were mon...

Model-averaged estimates, standard errors (Std. Error) and relative importance (wi) of selected variables in the best models of bird breeding at the Abadía Retuerta vineyard and the Concejiles and Chaparrito fruit tree orchards. The intercept summarizes the level in 2013. Estimated variance and standard deviation (Std. Dev) are shown for random eff...

Model-averaged estimates and standard errors (Std. Error) of the best models of predation of sentinel caterpillar samples (%) at the Abadía Retuerta vineyard and the Concejiles and Chaparrito fruit tree orchards. The intercept summarizes the levels close to active nest boxes and distant areas without nest boxes. Estimated variance and standard devi...

Disaggregated estimates of food consumption (grams) by insectivorous birds during the breeding season, based on published consumption rates for breeding Great tit (Parus major), weight of the other breeding insectivorous bird species relative to the weight of Great tit, number of breeding pairs and number of chicks per breeding pair in the studied...

Mean temperature and precipitation at the studied vineyard and fruit orchards between February and June in 2012–2016. Except for a preliminary trial at the vineyard, all field work was carried out from 2013 to 2016, and nest box exploration, occupancy and breeding by insectivorous birds occurred between February and July each year. Data are not rep...

Predation of sentinel samples of Greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella) caterpillars close to, or farther away from, active nest boxes and of paired sentinel samples in distant areas without nest boxes. Values shown are percentage means ± standard deviations. (DOC)

Use of nest boxes at each field site and year. Category 6 refers mostly to rodents, particularly Garden dormouse. (DOC)

The recent Global Drylands Assessment of forests is based on both an incomplete delimitation of dry forests distribution and on an old and incorrect delimitation of drylands. Its sampling design includes a large proportion of plots located in humid ecosystems and ignores critical areas for the conservation of dry forests. Therefore its results and...

Premise of the study: Two, nonmutually exclusive, mechanisms-competition for resources and architectural constraints-have been proposed to explain the proximal to distal decline in flower size, mass, and/or femaleness in indeterminate, elongate inflorescences. Whether these mechanisms also explain unusual positional effects such as distal to proxi...

Understanding and predicting the likely response of ecosystems to climate change are crucial challenges for ecology and for conservation biology. Nowhere is this challenge greater than in the tropics as these forests store more than half the total atmospheric carbon stock in their biomass. Biomass is determined by the balance between biomass inputs...

Biomass data used in the study. (XLSX)

Relationship between measured biomass with the Chave et al. (2005) and Alvarez et al. (2012) models, for 156 plots of Colombia. The lines represent the adjusted generalized linear model: ln (AGB B1) = a + b * ln (AGB B2) + C. Where B1 = measured biomass in this study with Alvarez et al. (2012), B2 = measured biomass with the Chave et al. (2005), an...

Relations between the biomass predicted by the pantropical maps of Baccini et al. (2012) and Saatchi et al. (2011), and the biomass measured in this study. The black solid line represents the adjusted linear model and the red dotted line the 1: 1 ratio between both values. For this analysis, we only use the 156 Colombian plots for which we have the...