Luís SilvaUniversity of the Azores | UAc
Luís Silva
PhD
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219
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Publications (219)
Background
Anthropogenic threats are causing alteration of coastal areas worldwide. Most of the coastal biodiversity is endangered, taking a particular toll on island ecosystems, like the Azores. To better understand the biotic and abiotic factors constraining the distribution and conservation status of two endemic plants, Azorina vidalii (Campanul...
Forest management plays a crucial role in preserving and enhancing the delivery of ecosystem services, whereas dendrochronological methods can play a significant role in this regard. In the Azores archipelago, with a temperate oceanic climate, with low thermal amplitude, and mild and relatively wet Summers, Cryptomeria japonica (Thunb. ex L.f.) D.D...
Laurus (Lauraceae) species are currently restricted to isolated refugia in the southern Black Sea, Mediterranean Basin, southern Morocco, and Macaronesian archipelagos. One to three species of Laurus has been recognized: the Azorean endemic Laurus azorica, L. nobilis from the Mediterranean, and L. novocanariensis from Madeira and the Canary Islands...
Youngia japonica (L.) DC. was recently discovered on the Azorean island of São Miguel. This species is a cosmopolitan herb that has been reported to be invasive in several regions of the world. It is unclear when and how this plant arrived in São Miguel, Azores. Nevertheless, we hypothesize that this is an unintentional and recent introduction. The...
In order to understand the complex evolutionary processes and patterns that explain current island biodiversity, large datasets and long-term analysis are required. The Last Interglacial (LIG) was one of the warmest interglacials during the last million years. How species mobility changed during this period in the Macaronesia geographical region ha...
Background
The data presented here originated from field expeditions carried out between 2017 and 2018, within the framework of Forest-Eco2 project: "Towards an Ecological and Economic valorisation of the Azorean Forest". The project aimed to quantify the ecological value of the Azorean forests, including carbon accumulation and to design and propo...
Angiosperms present an astonishing diversity of genome sizes that can vary intra- or interspecifically. The remarkable new cytogenomic data shed some light on our understanding of evolution, but few studies were performed with insular and mainland populations to test possible correlations with dispersal, speciation, and adaptations to insular envir...
Climate change poses one of the most significant challenges to conserve biodiversity, especially in tropical dry islands, as is the case of Cabo Verde (northeast Atlantic Ocean). This archipelago has a low percentage of forest cover and hosts only seven native tree species, among them, Faidherbia albida (Delile) A.Chev. (Fabaceae). Therefore, prote...
Forests on oceanic islands, such as the Azores archipelago, enable interesting dendroclimatic research, given their pronounced climatic gradients over short geographical distances, despite the less pronounced seasonality. The Lauraceae play an essential ecological role in Macaronesian natural forests. An example is Laurus azorica (Seub.) Franco, a...
Dendroclimatic records in areas with high relative humidity and low thermal amplitude are manifestly scarcer
and only a few studies are applied to species that are present in areas with weak seasonality. The Azores archipelago
with temperate climate, with low thermal amplitude, has unique biodiversity, including the Azorean
holly, Ilex azorica Gand...
Constructed wetlands are considered integrated ecosystems and a promising wastewater
treatment option, relying on vegetation, soils, and microbial assemblages. The potential dispersal of effluents from domestic septic systems, the application of dairy farm effluents containing excessive nutrients and pathogens into pastures, and undertreated efflue...
The flower, in angiosperms, is endowed with an extravagant diversity of forms and reproductive adaptations, promoting the transmission of genetic information to the next generations. In recent years, the endangered flora of the Azores has been the subject of several studies in the fields of molecular genetics and ecology. However, reproductive biol...
O género Picconia (De Candolle, 1844, Oleraceae) inclui duas espécies, restritas
geograficamente aos arquipélagos Macaronésios, Picconia azorica (Tutin) Knobl., endémica dos Açores e Picconia excelsa (Aiton) DC, endémica da Madeira e Canárias. O conhecimento acerca da sucessão de fenómenos reprodutivos é extremamente relevante, na definição de plan...
Climate change is one of the most significant challenges to biodiversity conservation, particularly in dry tropical islands, such as the Cabo Verde archipelago where only three endemic tree taxa occur – Dracaena draco subsp. caboverdeana, Phoenix atlantica and Sideroxylon marginatum – all classified as threatened. The main goal of this study was to...
Assessment of forest ecosystems and their services is seen as a key action for the advancement of biodiversity objectives, and to inform the development and implementation of related policies and planning. The Azorean forest is important for timber production, the protection of soil and water resources, and for its recreational and aesthetic value....
Research in Macaronesia has led to substantial advances in ecology, evolution and conservation biology. We review the scientific developments achieved in this region, and outline promising research avenues enhancing conservation. Some of these discoveries indicate that the Macaronesian flora and fauna are composed of rather young lineages, not Tert...
Tourists have become increasingly interested in certain aspects of their destination, including landscape and biodiversity elements, thereby promoting the development of nature-based tourism. The Azores are considered a sustainable tourism destination, with various natural attractions, including hiking trails. Based on the hypothesis that natural v...
Tree-ring inter-annual pattern variation is crucial in dendrochronology, allowing the identification of possible limiting factors on growth. Thus, trees exposed to subtropical or tropical climates without a marked seasonality may show a low degree of interannual variation, impeding a straightforward dendroclimatological approach. Meanwhile, subtrop...
Soil microbial community structure is determined by environmental conditions and influenced by other factors, such as the intensity of the land use management. Studies addressing the effect of environmental factors and management on grassland soil microbial communities at the continental scale are missing, and the wide range of ecosystem services p...
Assessment of forest ecosystems and their services is seen as a key action for the advancement of biodiversity objectives, and to inform the development and implementation of related policies and planning. We assessed biodiversity, structure and carbon stocks in a gradient of three forest types (Natural Forest-NF; Exotic Woodland-EW and Production...
In the last decades, the number of publications dedicated to the application of species distribution models (SDMs)
to invasive alien plants (IAPs) has constantly increased. Although recent reviews have addressed very relevant
issues in the application of SDMs, the modelling approaches (i.e., algorithms) applied to IAPs have not been
systematized. T...
Metagenomics methods enable the determination of the microbial community found in an environment, and the study of microbial diversity and function. These techniques accelerated the study of the soil microbiome, an important component for global nutrient cycling in diverse ecosystems, including forests and grasslands. We performed a review and bibl...
Tree-ring interannual pattern variation is crucial in dendrochronology, allowing the identification of possible limiting factors on growth. Thus, trees exposed to sub-tropical or tropical climates without a marked seasonality, may show a low degree of interannual variation, impeding a straightforward dendroclimatological approach. Meanwhile, subtro...
Unattached nodules of calcareous red algae (Rhodophyta), known as rhodoliths, are widely reported and studied in places that extend from the tropics to polar latitudes. Factors controlling the distribution of the rhodolith-forming species remain poorly understood. A review of the global distribution of present-day rhodolith beds was undertaken, col...
In the last decades, many natural areas were globally altered into rangeland or pastureland, which became one of the dominant land cover types. More than 50% of the land use in the Azores corresponds to pastureland, with agroindustry being a relevant socio-economic sector. With the world’s climate changing at a rapid pace, a more sustainable manage...
Seminatural habitats are declining throughout the world; thus, the role of small an-thropogenic habitats in the preservation of plants is becoming increasingly appreciated. Here, we surveyed the orchid flora of roadside verges in five Central European countries (Austria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) and tested how the surrounding lands...
The particularities of volcanic soils raise the need to better understand the link between soil agricultural management intensity and trace metal bioaccumulation. The Azores are a region characterized by volcanic soils, which were changed in different degrees according to the intensity of the agricultural practices. The main objective of this study...
In 2005, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) adopted the Common Agricultural Policy of ECOWAS (ECOWAP), as an instrument for implementing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). The main goals of ECOWAP/CAADP were set to promote agriculture development and end hunger by 2025. In this study we focused on...
The worldwide study of the geological record of the Last Interglacial is key to reconstruct the climatic and oceanographic conditions during that time interval. Here we present preliminary results of a comprehensive field analysis of one of the most extensive and least studied Quaternary fossiliferous sequences in Cabo Verde attributed to the Last...
The Azores, Madeira, Selvagens, Canary Islands and Cabo Verde are commonly united under the term "Macaronesia". This study investigates the coherency and validity of Macaronesia as a biogeographic unit using six marine groups with very different dispersal abilities: coastal fishes, echinoderms, gastropod molluscs, brachyuran decapod crustaceans, po...
The Azores, Madeira, Selvagens, Canary Islands and Cabo Verde are commonly united under the term “Macaronesia”. This study investigates the coherency and validity of Macaronesia as a biogeographic unit using six marine groups with very different dispersal abilities: coastal fishes, echinoderms, gastropod molluscs, brachyuran decapod crustaceans, po...
Forests provide a broad range of ecosystem services, but their contribution is not homogeneous. Due to land changes associated with anthropogenic activity,
primordial forests have been replaced by production and secondary forest, often constituted by exotic woodland, particularly in islands. This research addresses
ecological and economic valorisat...
The European Red List is a review of the status of European species according to IUCN regional Red Listing guidelines. It identifies those species that are threatened with extinction at the regional level – in order that appropriate conservation action can be taken to improve their status. This publication summarises results for all Europe’s native...
The European Red List is a review of the status of European species according to IUCN regional Red Listing guidelines. It identifies those species that are threatened with extinction at the regional level – in order that appropriate conservation action can be taken to improve their status. This publication summarises results for all Europe’s native...
The concept of ecosystem bundles as sets of consistently associated ecosystem services (ES) is used to quantify ES relationships and the socio-ecological conditions that drive them. Identifying ES bundles and their drivers is a useful strategy to improve management and policy decisions that goes beyond the concept of multifunctionalty and addresses...
Knowledge about folk medicines is limited to elder community members of remote communities, like Sete Cidades in the Azores. The Azores, 1300 km west of Portugal, are nine volcanic islands, totalling 2330 km 2 of land dispersed by 173,200 km 2 in the North Atlantic Ocean. The present study aims to scientifically document the uses of plant species f...
Nature-based tourism is the new paradigm of nature destinations, thus tourists are increasingly interested in peculiar aspects related with local landscape and biodiversity. The Azores are considered a sustainable nature destination, with several tourist attractions including hiking trails. To test the hypothesis that natural vegetation/forest may...
Climate change is gaining attention as a major threat to biodiversity. It is expected to further expand the risk of plant invasion through ecosystem disturbance. Particularly, island ecosystems are under pressure, and climate change may threaten forest-dependent species. However, scientific and societal unknowns make it difficult to predict how cli...
As in many archipelagos, the Azorean primary forest was largely cleared and replaced by secondary forest and grassland, the Azorean tree Laurus azorica (Seub.) Franco being one of the dominant trees in the remaining natural forests. Dendrochronological and dendrometric studies in the Azores mainly focused on non-indigenous trees, either used for ti...
While agro-climatic region is the stronger driver (due to prevailing environmental conditions), grassland management is an important determinant of fungal community composition. Swiss extensive grasslands promote higher fungal OTU richness, with this being significantly linked to an increase in plant species richness.
Our view of community ecology has evolved over time, beginning with two extreme visions of plant communities
which were considered either as species associations driven by random coincidences or as complex organisms
with clear interdependencies. More recently, biological communities tend to be viewed as a set of local
community assemblages that are...
Globally, island forests have suffered considerable anthropogenic change, and the
respective scientific knowledge is still heterogeneous. This is evident in the Azores,
where only about 10% of the native forest remains, production forest is largely
dominated by one species, and invasive woodland has spread. Dendrochronology is the
basis of a better...
The natural vegetation in many areas of the world has been replaced by pastures and monocultures, leading to profound changes in the soil and plant communities. Therefore, a more sustainable management is desirable for pastureland worldwide. The Azores are ideal to model those changes, with habitats ranging from semi-natural to completely artificia...
The phylogenetic relationships and phylogeography of two relatively rare Macaronesian Lactuca species, Lactuca watsoniana (Azores) and L. palmensis (Canary Islands), were, until this date, unclear. Karyological information of the Azorean species was also unknown. For this study, a chromosome count was performed and L. watsoniana showed 2n = 34. A p...
As plantas exóticas, introduzidas acidental ou propositadamente pelas atividades humanas, são uma importante componente da flora terrestre em Portugal. Na região Autonoma dos Açores um terço das manchas florestais é dominado por Pittosporum undulatum, ameaçando os ecossistemas naturais, nomeadamente a vegetação nativa. Têm sido realizados um conjun...
The natural vegetation in many areas of the world has been replaced by pastures and monocultures, leading to profound changes in the soil and plant communities. Therefore, a more sustainable management is desirable for pastureland worldwide. The Azores are ideal to model those changes, with habitats ranging from semi-natural to completely artificia...
Past climate changes provide important clues for advancement of studies on current global change biology. We have tested large-scale biogeographic patterns through four marine groups from twelve Atlantic Ocean archipelagos and searched for patterns between species richness/endemism and littoral area, age, isolation, latitude and mean annual sea-sur...
Supplementary files from Marine Pollution Bulletin, 126: 101-112, Global change impacts on large-scale biogeographic patterns of marine organisms on Atlantic oceanic islands, by ÁVILA, S.P., R. CORDEIRO, P. MADEIRA, L. SILVA, A. MEDEIROS, A.C. REBELO, C. MELO, A.I. NETO, R. HAROUN, A. MONTEIRO, K. RIJSDIJK & M.E. JOHNSON (2018).
The knowledge of medicinal properties of plants was transmitted from generation to generation and is now the object of study of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology.1 In rural societies and developing countries, the use of medicinal plants (also known as herbal medicine included in traditional medicine practice) is both a necessity and valuable resour...
As one cause for biodiversity loss, invasive alien species are a worldwide threat. However, exotic woodland can
also have an enormous biomass potential. The goal of this study was to evaluate the available aboveground
biomass (AGB, including trunk, branches and foliage) of the widespread woody plant invader Pittosporum undulatum in the exotic woodl...
Invasive alien species are among the most important, least controlled, and least reversible of human impacts on the world’s ecosystems, with negative consequences affecting biodiversity and socioeconomic systems. Species distribution models have become a fundamental tool in assessing the potential spread of invasive species in face of their native...
Natural areas located outside protected areas can provide important refugees for biodiversity conservation, as well as important ecosystem and biodiversity services. In the Azores, about 23% of the land territory is protected, but there are still many natural areas that lack protection status. In this research, we tested this hypothesis by analysin...
Several models have been proposed to explain the distribution patterns of species and communities along environmental gradients, ranging from discrete, individual community types, to a continuum of plant communities. The Azorean natural vegetation is a good study model to test those hypotheses, since it has been described in detail by several autho...
The use of biomass for energy production has shown a growing interest in recent years. Pittosporum undulatum is a widespread invasive tree in the Azores archipelago with a considerable potential as an energy resource. Sustainable use of forest resources demands accurate and precise estimation of standing biomass but for the Azores only a few studie...
Recently, we described changes in plant community composition along gradients of anthropogenic disturbance, using a multinomial distribution in a Bayesian framework. Species were organized into categories (e.g. endemic, native, naturalized, invasive) and the proportions of each category in each community were represented by a multinomial vector. We...
Species distribution models are algorithmic tools that relate the distribution and occurrence of a species to the environmental characteristics of the location from where it has been recorded. Those models, also known as ecological niche models, have emerged as an effective tool in spatial ecology, conservation and land management. The Ecological N...
Pittosporum undulatum Ventenat (Pittosporaceae) is an invasive tree of forests and woodlands in several regions of the world. In the Azores archipelago it occupies about 30% of the forested areas and efforts to valorize its biomass are underway. Implementing sustainable forest management requires basic information on tree age and growth rate, yet t...
Ephestia kuehniella (Lepidoptera, Pyralidae) and Sitotroga cerealella (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae) are important factitious hosts used for production of biological control agents. Their differences in terms of biology and behavior require adjustments in their mass production, particularly when using corn or barley as food in grain or in bran. We mode...