Marcos Fernández-Martínez

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• PhD in Ecology
• ERC and Ramón y Cajal researcher at Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications

Forests strongly affect climate through the exchange of large amounts of atmospheric CO2. The main drivers of spatial variability in net ecosystem production (NEP) on a global scale are, however, poorly known. As increasing nutrient availability increases the production of biomass per unit of photosynthesis and reduces heterotrophic respiration in...

Elevated CO2 concentrations increase photosynthesis and, potentially, net ecosystem production (NEP), meaning a greater CO2 uptake. Climate, nutrients and ecosystem structure, however, influence the effect of increasing CO2. Here we analysed global NEP from MACC-II and Jena CarboScope atmospheric inversions and ten dynamic global vegetation models...

Ecological stoichiometry and studies of biogeochemical niches have mainly focused on plankton and vascular plants, but the phenotypically closest modern relatives of early plants, bryophytes, have been largely neglected. We analysed C:N:P stoichiometries and elemental compositions (K, Na, Mg, Ca, S, Fe) of 35 widely distributed bryophyte species in...

The elemental composition of plants (the elementome) is a reliable indicator of their functional traits and the ecological strategies that they follow, and thus represents a good predictor of how ecosystems work. Biodiversity and, especially, functional diversity are also widely recognized as important drivers of ecosystem functioning, mainly becau...

Global net land carbon uptake or net biome production (NBP) has increased during recent decades¹. Whether its temporal variability and autocorrelation have changed during this period, however, remains elusive, even though an increase in both could indicate an increased potential for a destabilized carbon sink2,3. Here, we investigate the trends and...

The role played by environmental factors in the functioning of forest ecosystems is relatively well known. However, the potential of the elemental composition of trees (i.e., elementomes) as a predictor of forest functioning remains elusive. We assessed the predictive power of elemental composition from different perspectives: testing whether above...

Among ecologists, it is widely believed that conservative growth strategies of plants are crucial for sustaining ecosystem stability, while the potential stabilising role of acquisitive strategies has received little attention. We investigated the relationships between plant traits and three stability dimensions—temporal stability, resistance and r...

Purpose of Review The elemental composition of organisms (the elementome) strongly determines their functional traits and their functioning. Global change presents significant potential impacts on forest elementomes of trees, soils, and soil microbes, influencing primary production, nutrient cycling, and food-web dynamics in forest ecosystems. This...

The role of plants in sequestering carbon is a critical component in mitigating climate change. A key aspect of this role involves plant nitrogen (N) uptake (Nup) and N use efficiency (NUE), as these factors directly influence the capacity of plants to store carbon. However, the contribution of N deposition and soil factors (biotic and abiotic) in...

The development of non-linear dynamics showed that simple processes can lead to high complexity in the functioning of nature, and recent studies show that non-linear dynamics are common across populations of different taxa. However, whether the energy and matter fluxes of entire ecosystems follow non-linear dynamics, and how complex these dynamics...

The role played by environmental factors in the functioning of forest ecosystems is relatively well known. 8 However, the potential of the elemental composition of trees (i.e., elementomes) as a predictor of forest functioning remains 9 elusive. We assessed the predictive power of elemental composition from different perspectives: testing whether w...

Agricultural and livestock production cover more than a third of the Earth’s land surface and are crucial to food supply. Soil extracellular enzymes play an important role in the transformation of elements and compounds in soil, particularly acid (ACP) and alkaline (ALP) phosphatases (both, APases). These enzymes have a vital role in releasing phos...

Grassland management aims to ensure sufficient yield, forage quality and biodiversity. Robust knowledge supports sustainable management practices. In South Tyrol (NE Italy), we studied the effect of organic fertilisation on soil acid and alkaline phosphatase activity (ACP, ALP, or both APase), phosphorus (P) availability and forage yield in mountai...

Fungi are key decomposers of deadwood, but the impact of anthropogenic changes in nutrients and temperature on fungal community and its consequences for wood microbial respiration are not well understood. Here, we examined how nitrogen and phosphorus additions (field experiment) and warming (laboratory experiment) together influence fungal composit...

Fungi are key decomposers of deadwood, but the impact of anthropogenic changes in nutrients and temperature on fungal community and its consequences for wood microbial respiration are not well understood. Here, we examined how nitrogen and phosphorus additions (field experiment) and warming (laboratory experiment) together influence fungal composit...

Cultures in Mediterranean climate zones (MCZs) around the world have long been reliant on groundwater and springs as freshwater sources. While their ecology and cultural sustainability are recognized as critically important, inter-relationships between springs and culture in MCZs have received less attention. Here we augmented a global literature r...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on global health, with millions of people affected by the disease. Recent studies have shown that environmental factors such as air quality, temperature, and humidity can impact the survival and transmission of the virus, leading to differences in the rate of spread and severity of the disease in d...

Cultures in Mediterranean climate zones (MCZs) around the world have long been reliant on groundwater and springs as freshwater sources. While their ecology and cultural sustainability are recognized as critically important, inter-relationships between springs and culture in MCZs has received little attention. Here we augmented a global literature...

Non-technical summary We identify a set of essential recent advances in climate change research with high policy relevance, across natural and social sciences: (1) looming inevitability and implications of overshooting the 1.5°C warming limit, (2) urgent need for a rapid and managed fossil fuel phase-out, (3) challenges for scaling carbon dioxide r...

Bryophytes can play an important role in key ecosystem processes and represent potential candidates as bio- indicators for environmental monitoring programmes. Nitrate (NO3 −) pollution poses a growing threat to both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, potentially leading to imbalances in nutrient levels and altering the chemical composition of org...

Mediterranean spring ecosystems are unique habitats at the interface between surface water and groundwater. These ecosystems support a remarkable array of biodiversity and provide important ecological functions and ecosystem services. Spring ecosystems are influenced by abiotic, biotic, and anthropogenic factors such as the lithology of their drain...

The role of plants in sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide is a critical component in mitigating the adverse effects of climate change. A key aspect of this role involves plant nitrogen (N) uptake (Nup) and N use efficiency (NUE), as these factors directly influence the capacity of plants to capture and store carbon. However, the contribution of...

The Mediterranean is among the regions predicted to be most affected by climate change due to rising temperatures and increasing frequency as well as intensity of extreme weather events, such as drought. These shifts in climatic conditions might lead to changes in species community composition by enabling the increase of drought-tolerant species at...

Understanding the causes of the arrest of species distributions has been a fundamental question in ecology and evolution. These questions are of particular interest for trees owing to their long lifespan and sessile nature. A surge in data availability evokes a macro-ecological analysis to determine the underlying forces limiting distributions. Her...

Biodiversity is essential for maintaining the terrestrial ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF). Recent studies have revealed that the variations in terrestrial ecosystem functions are captured by three key axes: the maximum productivity, water use efficiency, and carbon use efficiency of the ecosystem. However, the role of biodiversity in supporting...

Global change, encompassing rising temperatures and an increase in extreme precipitation events, has influenced vegetation photosynthesis; this can be seen in the gross primary productivity (GPP) of terrestrial ecosystems, which, over time affects the global carbon cycle. The impact of climate on interannual variability in GPP (GPPIAV) has been ext...

When the springs dry up. The dramatic situation of the springs of the Serralada Litoral in the face of the climate crisis. – Ten years after the start of the Projecte Fonts, 31 springs from the Serralada Litoral, previously studied a decade ago, have been visited in order to compare their current water discharge with those from ten years go. All 31...

The elemental composition of plants (i.e., the elementome) relates to their functional traits which has important implications for understanding nutrient cycles and energy flows within ecosystems. Theoretically, elemental diversity (ED) captures functional diversity by comparing the n-dimensional elementome of the present species in a community. Ho...

Isoprene, produced by plants in response to multiple drivers, affects climate and air quality when released into the atmosphere. In turn, climate change may influence isoprene emissions through variations in occurrence and intensity of types of stress that affect plant functions. We test the effects of multiple drivers (temperature, precipitation,...

Applying industrial waste amendments, such as steel slag and biochar, to soils is an increasingly common practice to improve soil fertility, crop yield, and soil carbon (C) pool storage and stability. However, the effects of separate and combined applications of slag and biochar on total and active soil organic C (SOC) pools and the associated rela...

Understanding the causes of the arrest of species distributions has been a fundamental question in ecology and evolution. For trees, these questions are of particular interest due to their long lifespan and sessile nature. A surge in data-availability evokes for a macro-ecological analysis to determine the underlying forces limiting distributions....

Significant gaps remain in understanding the response of plant reproduction to environmental change. This is partly because measuring reproduction in long-lived plants requires direct observation over many years and such datasets have rarely been made publicly available. Here we introduce MASTREE+, a dataset that collates reproductive time-series d...

The leaf economics spectrum1,2 and the global spectrum of plant forms and functions³ revealed fundamental axes of variation in plant traits, which represent different ecological strategies that are shaped by the evolutionary development of plant species². Ecosystem functions depend on environmental conditions and the traits of species that comprise...

Consistent information on the current elemental composition of vegetation at global scale and the variables that determine it is lacking. To fill this gap, we gathered a total of 30 912 georeferenced records on woody plants foliar concentrations of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) from published databases, and produced global maps of...

Our study suggests that the global CO2 fertilization effect (CFE) on vegetation photosynthesis has declined during the past four decades. The Comments suggest that the temporal inconsistency in AVHRR data and the attribution method undermine the results’ robustness. Here, we provide additional evidence that these arguments did not affect our findin...

Soil phosphatase enzymes are produced by plant roots and microorganisms and play a key role in the cycling of phosphorus (P), an often‐limiting element in terrestrial ecosystems. The production of these enzymes in soil is the most important biological strategy for acquiring phosphate ions from organic molecules. Previous works showed how soil poten...

Differences in the elemental composition of plants, mainly C, N, and P, have been shown to be related to differences in their nutritional status, and their morphological and functional traits. The relationship between morphological traits and micronutrients and trace elements, however, has been much less studied. Additionally, in bryophytes, resear...

1. Nutrient economy and plant nutrient concentrations have been suggested as im- portant selective pressures of reproductive traits in vascular plants. However, evidence supporting that the reproduction of bryophytes and their reproductive traits have also been conditioned by nutrient availability is lacking. 2. We here analysed the nutrient (N, P,...

Grasslands are key repositories of biodiversity and carbon storage and are heavily impacted by effects of global warming and changes in precipitation regimes. Patterns of grassland dynamics associated with variability in future climate conditions across spatiotemporal scales are yet to be adequately quantified. Here, we performed a global meta‐anal...

• Properly assessing temporal patterns is a central issue in ecology in order to understand ecosystem processes and their mechanisms. Mast seeding has traditionally been described as a reproductive behavior consisting of highly variable and synchronized reproductive events. The most common metric used to measure temporal variability and thus infer...

The invisible life of our rivers: adaptive traits of macroinvertebrates to riverine habitats. – Rivers are ecosystems that can have quite different environmental characteristics along their course, such as the type of substrate or the speed of the water. In this paper we consider whether freshwater organisms reveal these differences depending on th...

The possibility of using the elemental compositions of species as a tool to identify species/genotype niche remains to be tested at a global scale. We investigated relationships between the foliar elemental compositions (elementomes) of trees at a global scale with phylogeny, climate, N deposition and soil traits. We analysed foliar N, P, K, Ca, Mg...

Global vegetation photosynthesis and productivity have increased substantially since the 1980s, but this trend is heterogeneous in both time and space. Here, we categorize the secular trend in global vegetation greenness into sustained greening, sustained browning and greening-to-browning. We found that by 2016, increased global vegetation greennes...

Camera Trap Monitoring of Mammals in the Montnegre Mountain Range: 2018-2019 Results In order to assess the populations of mammals and verify the possible presence of the wild cat in the Montnegre mountain range, in July 2018 three camera traps were installed at different altitudes on the northern slope of the mountain range. In December 2018, the...

The enhanced vegetation productivity driven by increased concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) [i.e., the CO2 fertilization effect (CFE)] sustains an important negative feedback on climate warming, but the temporal dynamics of CFE remain unclear. Using multiple long-term satellite- and ground-based datasets, we showed that global CFE has declined...

Forest production efficiency (FPE) metric describes how efficiently the assimilated carbon is partitioned into plants organs (biomass production, BP) or-more generally-for the production of organic matter (net primary production, NPP). We present a global analysis of the relationship of FPE to stand-age and climate, based on a large compilation of...

Global change is affecting terrestrial carbon balances. The effect of climate on ecosystem carbon balance has been largely explored, but the roles of other concurrently changing factors, such as diversity and nutrient availability, remain elusive. We used eddy-covariance carbon-flux measurements from 62 ecosystems from which we compiled information...

The present dataset belongs the paper: Collalti A., Ibrom A., Stockmarr A., Cescatti A., Alkama R., Fernández-Martínez M., Matteucci G., Sitch S., Friedlingstein P., Ciais P., Goll D.S., Nabel J.E.M.S., Pongratz J., Arneth A., Haverd V., Prentice I.C.. “Forest production efficiency increases with growth temperature", Nature Communications, 11, 5322...

Agricultural ecosystems are globally important sinks of carbon and other nutrient elements. In China, acid rain events affect about 0.62 million km², representing about 6.4% of total land area; however, the impacts of acid rain mediated nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) depositions on soil organic carbon (SOC) fractions and nutrient stocks in paddy soils...

Annually variable and synchronous seed production, or masting, is often correlated with environmental factors and in oaks involves differential pollination success that depends on phenological synchrony in flowering. The synchronization of phenology of flowering was thought to be driven by temperature during flowering (micro-climatic hypothesis). W...

Currently, a global analysis of the information available on the relative composition of the floral scents of a very diverse variety of plant species is missing. Such analysis may reveal general patterns on the distribution and dominance of the volatile compounds that form these mixtures, and may also allow measuring the effects of factors such as...

In his recent communication on our original paper 1,2 , D. Kelly, claiming that nutrient scarcity cannot select for masting behaviour in plants, initiated a fruitful discussion on traditionally settled hypotheses about the evolution of reproductive behaviour in plants. In his commentary, Kelly raises support for a contrasting hypothesis explaining...

Recruitment is a primary determinant of the long‐term dynamics of plant populations in changing environments. However, little information is known about the effects of anthropogenic environmental changes on reproductive ecology of trees. We evaluated the impact of experimentally induced 18 yr of drought on reproduction of three contrasting forest t...

Introductory paragraph We present a global analysis of the relationship of forest production efficiency (FPE) to stand age and climate, based on a large compilation of data on gross primary production and either biomass production or net primary production. FPE is important for both forest production and atmospheric carbon dioxide uptake. Earlier f...

The drivers of global change, including increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, N and S deposition, and climate change, likely affect the nutritional status of forests. Here we show forest foliar concentrations of N, P, K, S and Mg decreased significantly in Europe by 5%, 11%, 8%, 6% and 7%, respectively during the last three decades. The decr...

Masting-temporally variable seed production with high spatial synchrony-is a pervasive strategy in wind-pollinated trees that is hypothesized to be vulnerable to climate change due to its correlation with variability in abiotic conditions. Recent work suggests that aging may also have strong effects on seed production patterns of trees, but this po...

Some tree species have a highly variable year-to-year pattern of reproduction which has repercussions for the entire ecosystem. Links between meteorological variability, fruit production and crown cover, and trade-offs between reproduction and vegetative growth, remain elusive, despite a long history of research. We explored how meteorological cond...

Mast seeding is one of the most intriguing reproductive traits in nature. Despite its potential drawbacks in terms of fitness, the widespread existence of this phenomenon suggests that it should have evolutionary advantages under certain circumstances. Using a global dataset of seed production time series for 219 plant species from all of the conti...

Anthropogenic activities and intensive farming are causing nitrate pollution in groundwater bodies. These aquifers are drained by springs which, in the Mediterranean region, act as refugia for preserving biodiversity of species that need continuous water. Some springs are also used for drinking water for wild animals, livestock and humans, so if th...

Continuous atmospheric CO2 monitoring data indicate an increase in the amplitude of seasonal CO2-cycle exchange (SCANBP) in northern high latitudes. The major drivers of enhanced SCANBP remain unclear and intensely debated, with land-use change, CO2 fertilization and warming being identified as likely contributors. We integrated CO2-flux data from...

Mosses are amongst the oldest and simplest plants, they can be found almost everywhere in the world, and they condition the structure and function of many ecosystems. Their sensitivity to environmental changes makes them very interesting subjects of study in ecology, and understanding them can provide insights into the evolutionary history of plant...

Soil fauna is a key control of the decomposition rate of leaf litter, yet its interactions with litter quality and the soil environment remain elusive. We conducted a litter decomposition experiment across different topographic levels within the landscape replicated in two rainforest sites providing natural gradients in soil fertility to test the h...

Soil fauna is a key control of the decomposition rate of leaf litter, yet its interactions with litter quality and the soil environment remain elusive. We conducted a litter decomposition experiment across different topographic levels within the landscape replicated in two rainforest sites providing natural gradients in soil fertility to test the h...

Nutrient availability influences virtually every aspect of an ecosystem, and is a critical modifier of ecosystem responses to global change. Although this crucial role of nutrient availability in regulating ecosystem structure and functioning has been widely acknowledged, nutrients are still often neglected in observational and experimental synthes...

Tothom qui coneix el Montseny, poc o molt, té una font preferida. Els més experts, i sovint més vells, fins i tot saben quines són les més bones per veure-hi aigua. Però, ai las! Són realment més bones que les de les altres serralades? En aquest article expliquem algunes de les diferències de les fonts del Montseny respecte les de les serralades pr...

Remotely sensed vegetation indices (RSVIs) can be used to efficiently estimate terrestrial primary productivity across space and time. Terrestrial productivity, however, has many facets (e.g., spatial and temporal variability, including seasonality, interannual variability, and trends), and different vegetation indices may not be equally good at pr...

Continuous atmospheric CO2 monitoring data indicate an increase in seasonal-cycle amplitude (SCA) of CO2 exchange in northern high latitudes. The major drivers of enhanced SCA remain unclear and intensely debated with land-use change, CO2 fertilization and warming identified as likely contributors. We integrated CO2-flux data from two atmospheric i...

Every living creature on Earth is made of atoms of the various bioelements that are harnessed in the construction of molecules, tissues, organisms, and communities, as we know them. Organisms need these bioelements in specific quantities and proportions to survive and grow. Distinct species have different functions and life strategies, and have the...

Many plant species present inter-annual cycles of seed production (mast seeding), with synchronized high seed production across populations in some years. Weather is believed to be centrally involved in triggering masting. The links between meteorological conditions and seeding are well-recognized for some species, but in others consistent correlat...

Synchronized and variable reproduction by perennial plants, called mast seeding, is a major reproductive strategy of trees. The need to accumulate sufficient resources after depletion following fruiting (resource budget), the efficiency of mass flowering for outcross pollination (pollen coupling), or the external factors preventing reproduction (en...

Temporal variability in ecological processes has attracted the attention of many disciplines in ecology, which has resulted in the development of several quantitative indices. The coefficient of variation (CV = standard deviation × mean−1) is still one of the most commonly used indices to assess temporal variability, despite being known to present...

Sea spray aerosol (SSA) is responsible for the large-scale transfer of particles from the sea to the land, leading to significant deposition of a range of ions, predominantly Na + , K + , Mg 2+, Ca 2+ , and Cl −. Up to now, there has been little research into the effects of SSA on spring water chemistry. Therefore, we sampled 303 semi-natural sprin...

Projecte Fonts: study of the bryophyte communities of springs Springs are a favourable habitat for the establishment of bryophyte communities due to the constant presence of water. The objective of this project is to identify the bryophyte species that grow in springs, see if there are associations between the different species of bryophytes and c...

Bryophytes are some of the most sensitive biological indicators of environmental change. Springs have a significant presence of bryophytes and so are ideal habitats for studying their relationship with the environment. We tested whether bryophyte assemblages can be explained with macro-, meso- and micro-ecological variables (i.e. seasonal climate,...

The quantification of isoprene and monoterpene emissions at the ecosystem level with available models and field measurements is not entirely satisfactory. Remote-sensing techniques can extend the spatial and temporal assessment of isoprenoid fluxes. Detecting the exchange of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) using these techniques is, how...

Bryophytes have biological traits that make them some of the most sensitive indicators of environmental change. Springs have a significant presence of bryophytes and hence they are ideal habitats for studying their relationship with the environment. We tested whether bryophyte species richness and distribution can be predicted with macroecological...

Soil phosphatase levels strongly control the biotic pathways of phosphorus (P), an essential element for life, which is often limiting in terrestrial ecosystems. We investigated the influence of climatic and soil traits on phosphatase activity in terrestrial systems using metadata analysis from published studies. This is the first analysis of globa...

The increase in aridity, mainly by decreases in precipitation but also by higher temperatures, is likely the main threat to the diversity and survival of Mediterranean forests. Changes in land use, including the abandonment of extensive crop activities, mainly in mountains and remote areas, and the increases in human settlements and demand for more...

The emission of isoprenoids (e.g. isoprene and monoterpenes) by plants plays an important defensive role against biotic and abiotic stresses. Little is known, however, about the functional traits linked to species‐specific variability in the types and rates of isoprenoids emitted and about possible co‐evolution of functional traits with isoprenoid...

Masting is the highly variable production of synchronized seed crops, and is a common reproductive strategy in plants. Weather has been long recognized as centrally involved in driving seed production in masting plants. However, the theory behind mechanisms connecting weather and seeding variation has only recently been developed, and still lacks e...

Mast seeding, the extremely variable and synchronized production of fruits, is a common reproductive behavior in plants. Weather is centrally involved in driving masting. Yet, it is often claimed that it cannot be the sole proximate cause of masting because weather is less variable than fruit production and because the shape of their distributions...