Margarita Florencio

Autonomous University of Madrid | UAM · Department of Ecology

Globally, 41% of amphibian species are threatened with extinction. Temporary ponds are crucial ecosystems for amphibian breeding where large predators are typically absent, therefore reducing the predation pressure on their larvae. Also, in these ecosystems large branchiopods (LB) proliferate, becoming a significant food source for several species....

Biodiversity loss and declining ecosystem functioning is spreading at alarming rates worldwide. In this context, pondscapes, including temporary ponds, have emerged as potential Nature-based Solutions that offer valuable ecosystem services and connect freshwater habitats as stepping-stone ecosystems. However, agricultural intensification and hydrol...

Loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ESS) continues at alarming rates globally. In this context, pondscapes including temporary ponds have emerged as potential Nature-based Solutions which provide multiple ecosystem services and connect freshwater habitats. However, agricultural intensification and hydrological modifications have threatened...

The success of amphibian conservation efforts is highly dependent on the preservation of amphibian breeding habitats. Doñana National Park contains an abundance of ponds with heterogeneous characteristics, which has historically favoured its amphibian community. However, most of the park’s ponds are groundwater dependent, and aquifer overexploitati...

Standardized terminology in science is important for clarity of interpretation and communication. In invasion science – a dynamic and rapidly evolving discipline – the proliferation of technical terminology has lacked a standardized framework for its development. The result is a convoluted and inconsistent usage of terminology, with various discrep...

Temporary ponds are priority habitats for conservation under the Habitats Directive (code 3170), harbouring singular fauna and flora. Some of these emblematic species are large branchiopods, most of them rare and relict species considered flagship species of well-preserved temporary ponds , i.e., reflecting good conservation status (Brendonck et al...

Standardized terminology in science is important for clarity of interpretation and communication. In invasion science — a dynamic and quickly evolving discipline — the rapid proliferation of technical terminology has lacked a standardized framework for its language development. The result is a convoluted and inconsistent usage of terminology, with...

Temporary ponds are priority habitats for conservation under the Habitats Directive, harbouring singular fauna and flora. Some of these emblematic species are large branchiopods, being some rare and relict species considered as ‘‘sentinels’’ in temporary ponds, i.e., reflecting good conservation status. In recent decades, the biodiversity of tempor...

Aim Invasive alien species are a growing problem worldwide due to their ecological, economic and human health impacts. The “killer shrimp” Dikerogammarus villosus is a notorious invasive alien amphipod from the Ponto‐Caspian region that has invaded many fresh and brackish waters across Europe. Understandings of large‐scale population dynamics of hi...

The overexploitation of groundwater is directly altering the temporary pond network located in the sandy area of the Doñana National Park. Some ponds have disappeared, and many others have reduced their hydroperiod and flooded area which, in turn, have impacted the species inhabiting them. The most vulnerable species are those requiring a long hydr...

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...

Temporary ponds are widespread across the world harbouring a high aquatic biodiversity, including singular species that have developed strategies to survive pond desiccation. However, these waterbodies are highly vulnerable to external perturbations and have been destroyed or seriously damaged in the last decades. We selected a pond network that ha...

The Azorean islands have been historically affected by human activities, mainly due to the combined effects of habitat degradation and fragmentation, and the introduction of exotic species. We here aim to analyze the role of environmental characteristics and spatial descriptors in supporting regional biodiversity of macroinvertebrates by considerin...

In Mediterranean temporary ponds, the timing of annual flooding is highly variable and depends on heavy seasonal rains. Ponds can flood in the autumn, winter, or spring, and thus the environmental conditions faced by emerging zooplankton can be very different. We performed an experiment in a climatic chamber where we simulated annual variation in n...

Organisms are exposed to multiple environmental factors simultaneously to which they often respond behaviorally, morphologically and/or physiologically. Amphibian larvae are quite plastic and efficiently adjust their phenotype and physiology to the reigning local conditions. Here we tested whether the combination of predator presence and low water...

Historical gaps and biases in the literature may have influenced the current knowledge of the impacts of invaders on global biodiversity. We performed a systematic review and compiled the main gaps and biases in the literature and the reported negative, neutral and positive effects of exotic species on local invertebrates worldwide. We analysed the...

Understanding patterns of community structure and the causes for their variation can be furthered by comparative biogeographic analyses of island biotas. We used woody plant data at the local scale to investigate variations in species rarity, alpha, beta, and gamma diversity within and between three islands from the oceanic archipelagoes of Azores,...

Estos vídeos tutoriales son el resultados de un proyecto de innovación docente en la Universidad de Alcalá, para ayudar a resolver dudas sobre búsqueda bibliográfica, organización de toma de datos, manejo de datos y construcción de gráficos simples en excel, procesado de datos para análisis estadísticos en el programa R, y técnicas experimentales e...

Islands harbour evolutionary and ecologically unique biota, which are currently disproportionately threatened by a multitude of anthropogenic factors, including habitat loss, invasive species and climate change. Native forests on oceanic islands are important refugia for endemic species, many of which are rare and highly threatened. Long-term monit...

In comparison with other Macaronesian archipelagos, Azorean freshwater macroinvertebrates are characterized by a smaller list of species at the archipelago regional scale. Although knowledge of the freshwater fauna of the Azores has improved in recent years through the implementation of the "Water Framework Directive", we are still far from having...

The deficiency in the distributional data of invertebrate taxa is one of the major impediments acting on the bias towards the low awareness of its conservation status. The present study sets a basic framework to understand the large branchiopods distribution in the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands. Since the extensive surveys performed in the...

The Doñana temporary pond network is characterized by a high flora and fauna species richness, including a high number of are and threatened species. This high biodiversity is due to the high abundance of ponds of different size across a broad hydroperiod range. The different geomorphological areas within the park contribute to increase the heterog...

Understanding the processes that lead to successful invasions is essential for the management of exotic species. We aimed to assess the comparative relevance of habitat (both at local and at regional scale) and plant features on the species richness of local canopy spiders of both indigenous and exotic species. In an oceanic island, Azores archipel...

Eggs of theWestern spadefoot toad (Pelobates cultripes) reached a 100%mortality in all 29 clutches deposited at a pH below 5.0 in a temporary pond of the Doñana National Park (SWSpain) throughout the wet season of 2006– 2007. A similar trend was detected in a neighbouring pond. The proximity of these two ponds to a groundwater pumping area (b1.5 km...

The presence of the large branchiopod fauna in the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands was recorded obtained from bibliographical and recent captures. The fauna includes 16 anostracans, 7 notostracans and 4 spinicaudatans, although we considered the different species of genus Triops as one taxa, due to the difficulties to allocate the bibliograp...

Temporary ponds are unpredictable habitats that exhibit inundation periods of variable duration (hydroperiods). We hypothesised that changes in microcrustacean assemblages, namely among ponds (spatial variation) and within ponds at a monthly scale (intra-annual variation), would differ according to hydroperiod length. We found that the microcrustac...

To fully understand odonate life cycles, it is vital to analyse the patterns of larval growth, which are tightly associated with variations in environmental factors. However, the identification of larval instars is often difficult, especially for early development stages. We hypothesise that pond hydroperiod influences odonate larval growth, and te...

The province of Cadiz (South of Spain) hosts the only known locality in the world of Linderiella baetica Alonso & García-de-Lomas 2009 (Anostraca). In this paper, the geographical distribution of the species based on published sampling data focused on large branchiopods and temporary pools in Andalusia and the entire Iberian Peninsula is assessed....

The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) prioritises the importance of freshwater conservation areas in the Macaronesian Islands (Azores, Madeira, Canarias and Cape Verde). However, few studies have investigated these freshwater areas. Therefore, research must focus on establishing reference sites for aquatic conservation. We analyse the potential ef...

The presence of the exotic weevil Stenopelmus rufinasus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) is closely related to the occurrence of the exotic red water fern, Azolla filiculoides. In this paper, we present the first records of S. rufinasus in Doñana National Park (SW Spain), based on sampling of macroinvertebrates in 91 temporary ponds, including monthly s...

Human-caused disturbances can lead to the extinction of indigenous (endemic and native) species, while facilitating and increasing the colonisation of exotic species; this increase can, in turn, promote the similarity of species compositions between sites if human-disturbed sites are consistently invaded by a regionally species-poor pool of exotic...

Geomorphological and hydrological features can provide a sound basis for global wetland classification. Temporary ponds located on the sandy area of Doñana can be classified into five different geomorphological areas. We hypothesised that these ponds would differ in soil characteristics, which may also explain differences in the composition of thei...

Las extracciones para regadío y sobre todo para abastecer a Matalascañas (Huelva) ponen en peligro el sistema de lagunas temporales de Doñana, el más importante de Europa de sus características. Mayor control del consumo de agua en la famosa urbanización litoral y la educación ambiental de los que veranean en ella son necesarios para garantizar la...

Invasive crayfish have severely impacted invaded aquatic ecosystems worldwide. We studied temporal and spatial variation in the range expansion of the red swamp crayfish at one of the first European localities to which it was introduced: Doñana National Park (SW Spain). In contrast to the rapid range expansion witnessed in other areas, this invasiv...

Macroinvertebrate assemblages of temporary ponds are ideal model systems to explore biodiversity patterns and metacommunity ecology. In addition, the study of the environmental variables driving such biodiversity patterns is essential in establishing proper guidelines for the conservation of the singular fauna of temporary ponds, especially since s...

AimsHuman landscape disturbance can drive the degradation of natural environments, thereby contributing to indigenous (endemic and native non-endemic) species extinctions, facilitating the establishment of exotic species and ultimately resulting in more similar species compositions over time and space. We assessed whether similarities in epigean ar...

Seasonal variation in macroinvertebrate assemblages usually is attributed to environmental variability, but this relationship is unclear in temporary ponds because they are highly dynamic across time. We assessed the influence of environmental variables and biotic interactions on macroinvertebrate community structure in 22 temporary ponds sampled m...

Presencia de Lestes macrostigma (Eversmann, 1836) (Odonata: Lestidae) en las lagunas temporales del Parque Nacional de Doñana (sudoeste de España) Resumen: Se han detectado adultos de la especie vulnerable Lestes macrostigma (Eversmann, 1836) (Odonata: Lestidae), de forma abundante y frecuente, en las lagunas temporales del Parque Nacional de Doñan...

Recent and increasing interest in temporary ponds as biodiversity reservoirs fosters our need to test sampling techniques for characterising their biological communities. We compared the efficiency of dip-netting to that of fyke nets in sampling the macroinvertebrate assemblage of a temporary pond in Doñana National Park (SW Spain). We sampled the...

Nowadays, established populations of exotic turtles, Trachemys scripta elegans, coexist with native turtles in the wild in southern Spain. We analysed the diet of this exotic species and compared it with the diet of the two native species (Mauremys leprosa and Emys orbicularis) in two ponds. The exotic turtle is an opportunistic omnivore. In one of...

Nestedness has been widely used to measure the structure of biological communities and occurs when species-poor sites contain subsets of species-rich ones. Here, we examine nested patterns across the macroinvertebrate assemblages of 91 ponds in Doñana National Park, Spain, and explore temporal variation of nestedness and species richness in 19 temp...

Macroinvertebrate assemblages of 22 temporary ponds with different hydroperiod were sampled monthly during a dry year (2005–2006) and a wet year (2006–2007). Coleopteran and Heteropteran adults were most abundant at the end of the hydroperiod, while Coleopteran larvae, mainly Dytiscidae, were mostly recorded in spring. Macroinvertebrate assemblages...

Diversity assessments and conservation management should take into account the dynamic nature of populations and communities, particularly when they are subject to highly variable and unpredictable environmental conditions. This study evaluates the inter‐annual variability in the assemblage composition (temporal turnover) of an amphibian community...

Temporay ponds from Dõ nana National Park: a system of natural habitats for the preservation of aquatic ora and fauna Mediterranean temporary ponds are a priority habitat under the European Union Habitats Directive, but those of natural origin are scarce, as many of them have been destroyed or transformed into permanent waters. The aim of this stud...

The Doñana Natural Area includes a large array of wetlands with the highest degree of environmental protection in Spain, and so it has long attracted many studies. We present a cumulative list of zooplankton taxa (Copepods and Branchiopods) based on a collection of 18 publications (1964–2007) and 4 unpublished studies. Seventy-eight taxa have been...

We have detected the presence of the North American native corixid Trichocorixa verticalis ver-ticalis (Fieber, 1851) in Doñana wetlands (SW Spain). We have collected data from different research projects done in the area during the period of 2001–2007. We have sampled 134 different sites in Doñana and we found the exotic corixid in 66 occasions. W...

Macroinvertebrate assemblages of 22 tem-porary ponds with different hydroperiod were sampled monthly during a dry year (2005–2006) and a wet year (2006–2007). Coleopteran and Heteropteran adults were most abundant at the end of the hydroperiod, while Coleopteran larvae, mainly Dytiscidae, were mostly recorded in spring. Macroinvertebrate assem-blag...

We describe the spatial and temporal variation in the main characteristics of amphibian breeding habitats in Doñana National Park (south of Spain), during two hydrologic cycles with different rainfall amounts and timing (2002–2003 and 2005–2006). We also evaluate amphibian habitat requirements following a model selection approach based on Akaike’s...

We report the prevalence and diversity of helminth parasites found in native turtles Mauremys leprosa and Emys orbicularis from three localities in southwestern Spain and we describe the helminth communities of exotic turtles Trachemys scripta elegans coexisting in the wild with both native turtle species. Five nematodes species were identified, of...

Mortalidad de puestas de anfibios por la acidificacion causada por la tendencia a la desecacion de sus habitats de reproduccion

Mortalidad de puestas de anfibios por la acidificacion causada por la tendencia a la desecacion de sus habitats de reproduccion

The zooplankton (rotifer and microcrustacean) assemblages of temporary ponds in the Doñana National Park (south‐west Spain) have been compared in two surveys of contrasting scales that resulted in the same number of samples: an extensive survey of 36 ponds sampled in May 1998 (or widespread survey) and a survey of nine ponds sampled four times over...

Falcaustra donanaensis sp. nov. (Nematoda, Kathlaniidae) from the large intestine of Mauremys leprosa (Testudines, Bataguridae) is described. By the absence of pseudosucker, arrangement of the male caudal papillae and the size of the spicules Falcaustra donanaensis sp. nov. resembles only to Falcaustra washingtonensis [Bursey and Aker (2001) J Para...

We have detected the presence of the North American native corixid Trichocorixa verticalis verticalis (Fieber, 1851) in Doñana wetlands (SW Spain). We have collected data from different research projects done in the area during the period of 2001–2007. We have sampled 134 different sites in Doñana and we found the exotic corixid in 66 occasions. We...