Mario Mairal

Complutense University of Madrid | UCM · Departamento de Biodiversidad, Ecología y Evolución

The link between the successful establishment of alien species and propagule pressure is well‐documented. Less known is how humans influence the post‐introduction dynamics of invasive alien populations. The latter requires studying parallel invasions by the same species in habitats that are differently impacted by humans. We analysed microsatellite...

iNaturalist defines itself as an “online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature” and it is likely one of the largest citizen science web portals in the world, as every year millions of observations across thousands of species are gathered and collectively compiled by an engaged community of n...

This educational initiative is crafted to enhance the learning experience of first-year botany students by integrating the iNaturalist platform into their curriculum. The project involves students generating observations and identifying plant species in the arboretum of the School of Forestry Engineering and Natural Resources (ETSIMFMN) in Madrid,...

Acaulon mediterraneum Limpr. Pallavicinia lyellii (Hook.) Carruth.

Biological invasions in remote areas that experience low human activity provide unique opportunities to elucidate processes responsible for invasion success. Here we study the most widespread invasive plant species across the isolated islands of the Southern Ocean, the annual bluegrass, Poa annua. To analyze geographic variation in genome size, gen...

El 31 de julio de 2022 se fundó la asociación Jóvenes por la Botánica Española (JxBE) con el objetivo de conectar a la juventud con el mundo de la botánica y la micología bajo una perspectiva transdisciplinar, interterritorial, reivindicativa e inclusiva: desde estudiantes de Grado, Formación Profesional o aficionados hasta pre- y postdoctorales y...

Plant conservation is still routinely neglected in conservation plans and receives limited attention, making it difficult to have an up-to-date knowledge of the threatened status of many plant species. To alleviate this situation arises the SICAF project (Save the Iberian & Canarian Flora): a citizen science project with the aim of creating a netwo...

Editorial Conservación Vegetal n°25

Con objeto de fomentar el interés por la botánica, surgió la idea de organizar el I Biomaratón de Flora Española: un evento de ciencia ciudadana en el que personas de todo el país salieron a fotografiar el mayor número posible de plantas. Se realizó utilizando la plataforma de ciencia ciudadana iNaturalist, y se vertebró por medio de coordinadores...

Premise: Genera that are widespread, with geographically discontinuous distributions and represented by few species, are intriguing. Is their achieved disjunct distribution recent or ancient in origin? Why are they species-poor? The Rand Flora is a continental-scale pattern in which closely related species appear codistributed in isolated regions...

Geographic range shifts are one major organism response to climate change, especially if the rate of climate change is higher than that of species adaptation. Ecological niche models (ENM) and biogeographic inferences are often used in estimating the effects of climatic oscillations on species range dynamics. ENMs can be used to track climatic suit...

Supplementary material for: Multiple mountain-hopping colonization of sky-islands on the two sides of Tropical Africa during the Pleistocene: the afroalpine Festuca grasses. Journal of Biogeography.

Aim The afroalpine sky‐islands present one of the most interesting models to study discrete biogeographic patterns in a terrestrial island system. Here, we performed range‐wide sampling of the afroalpine clade of fine‐leaved Festuca grasses and address a set of hypotheses on its origin and dispersal. We focus on the widespread species F. abyssinica...

Aim Species with widespread distributions offer excellent opportunities for investigating recent biogeographical patterns across broad scales. Here, we tested the hypothesis that, due to its intermediate geographical location, NW Africa is pivotal in explaining the phylogeographical patterns of taxa with Mediterranean–Macaronesian distributions usi...

Invited seminar at Charles University (Prague): Extinction debt threatens to collapse biodiversity in island systems. Full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl5kt6y8YZc Extinction debt is the delay between the loss of habitat and the total collapse of populations; although the extinction effects are imperceptible in the short term, they...

Conferencia de Apertura de las XXVII Jornadas Forestales de Gran Canaria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4OBsSvbLX8&t=2152s Charla divulgativa "El ocaso invisible de la laurisilva: biogeografía, declive y propuestas de conservación y gestión" En Canarias han sucedido grandes eventos climático y geológicos en los últimos millones de años. Algu...

The flora of sub-Antarctic Marion Island forms part of the unique South Indian Ocean Biogeographic Province, and is under threat from climate change and invasive species. Current information on the flora is necessary to rapidly identify and manage future changes. We conducted a literature search on the taxonomy of indigenous vascular plant species...

Ecological interactions, especially those that are beneficial (i.e. mutualism) or detrimental (i.e. parasitism), play important roles during the establishment and spread of alien species. This chapter explores the role of these interactions during biological invasions in South Africa, covering a wide range of taxonomic groups and interaction types....

Cuesta imaginar que hace tan solo siete millones de años, cuando el Mioceno estaba llegando a su fin, el norte de África era un territorio húmedo, donde se extendía una ve-getación de carácter subtropical. Sin embargo, un intenso periodo de actividad tectónica estaba a punto de comenzar: la Placa Africana se estaba elevando en su parte este, en un...

Full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqXzTKCRzfI&t=123s ------------------------------------------------------ The South African Prince Edward archipelago stands out as one of the most remote and pristine places in Earth, giving shelter to both an impressive endemic flora and the largest colonies in the world for seabirds and marine mamm...

Recent island colonists are expected to represent the fraction of the mainland source population with greater dispersal ability. After colonization, the loss of dispersal on islands hypothesis (LDIH) predicts that island populations will experience a rapid reduction in dispersal ability due to negative selective pressures imposed by loss of propagu...

Recent island colonists are expected to represent the fraction of the mainland source population with greater dispersal ability. After colonization, the loss of dispersal on islands hypothesis (LDIH) predicts that island populations will experience a rapid reduction in dispersal ability due to negative selective pressures imposed by loss of propagu...

The distribution of genetic variation in species is governed by factors that act differently across spatial scales. To tease apart the contribution of different processes, especially at intermediate spatial scales, it is useful to study simple ecosystems such as those on sub‐Antarctic oceanic islands. In this study, we characterize spatial genetic...

Subtropical islands are often viewed as refuges where Quaternary climatic shifts driving global episodes of extinction were buffered. Island biodiversity, however, may have been impacted by climatic fluctuations at local scales, particularly in spatially heterogeneous island systems. In this study, we generated a conceptual framework for predicting...

The high degree of isolation and altitude of the Tropical African mountains has led to consider them as "within-continent" islands or sky islands – geographically isolated high-altitude habitats occurring alongside different mountain ranges. Furthermore, Afroalpine sky-islands present one of the most interesting systems to study discrete biogeograp...

Background and aims: Archipelagos provide a valuable framework for investigating phenotypic evolution under different levels of geographical isolation. Here, we analysed two co-distributed, widespread plant lineages to examine if incipient island differentiation follows parallel patterns of variation in traits related to dispersal and colonization...

The Southern Ocean presents one of the most interesting arenas in which to study phylogeographic patterns linked to dispersal and the drivers of propagules. This area stands in stark contrast to the Arctic circle in the northern hemisphere, given the very different land to water ratios present in these two polar regions, highlighting the huge dista...

Background and Aims The origin of different cytotypes by autopolyploidy may be an important mechanism in plant diversification. Although cryptic autopolyploids probably comprise the largest fraction of overlooked plant diversity, our knowledge of their origin and evolution is still rather limited. Here we study the presumed autopolyploid aggregate...

Background and aims: Various studies and conservationist reports have warned about the contraction of the last subtropical Afro-Macaronesian forests. These relict vegetation zones have been restricted to a few oceanic and continental islands around the edges of Africa, due to aridification. Previous studies on relict species have generally focused...

Aim The loss of dispersal on islands hypothesis ( LDIH ) posits that wind‐dispersed plants should exhibit reduced dispersal potential, particularly if island populations are old. In this study, we tested this hypothesis using a detailed phylogeographical framework across different geographical scales. Location Mainland and island areas of the Atla...

The Eastern African Afromontane forest is getting increased attention in conservation studies because of its high endemicity levels and shrinking geographic distribution. Phylogeographic studies have found evidence of high levels of genetic variation structured across the Great Rift System. Here, we use the epiphytic plant species Canarina eminii t...

Aim The disjunct distribution patterns of sister taxa can arise when previously continuous distribution ranges are fragmented by environmental changes such as major climatic events. Populations become isolated on either side of the newly established environmental barrier, and absence of gene flow promotes allopatric speciation, in a process that is...

Varias especies vegetales emparentadas entre sí habitan lados opuestos del continente africano, aisladas unas de otras. El origen de esta distribución peculiar, denominada Rand Flora, intriga desde hace tiempo a los botánicos

Global change and the current biodiversity crisis have increased the need to understand the effect of climate change on patterns of biodiversity distribution and the mechanisms or factors underlying them. To understand the origin of these biodiversity patterns, scientists have resorted to macroevolutionary explanations studying the relationships be...

Geographical isolation by oceanic barriers and climatic stability has been postulated as some of the main factors driving diversification within volcanic archipelagos. However, few studies have focused on the effect that catastrophic volcanic events have had on patterns of within-island diversification in geological time. This study employed data f...

The Rand Flora is a well-known floristic pattern in which unrelated plant lineages show similar disjunct distributions in the continental margins of Africa and adjacent islands—Macaronesia-northwest Africa, Horn of Africa-Southern Arabia, Eastern Africa, and Southern Africa. These lineages are now separated by environmental barriers such as the ari...

Here, we investigate the evolutionary origin and timing of the Rand Flora pattern —a continent-wide geographic pattern where taxa present extreme disjunctions and are found on, e.g., either side of the Sahara— since the Late Miocene until now. Using phylogenetic inference, we dated the disjunction of major Rand flora lineages and quantified their c...

Transoceanic distributions have attracted the interest of scientists for centuries. Less attention has been paid to the evolutionary origins of "continent-wide" disjunctions, in which related taxa are distributed across isolated regions within the same continent. A prime example is the "Rand Flora" pattern, which shows sister-taxa disjunctly distri...

The Rand flora is a disjunct floristic pattern relating semiarid and subtropical floras between Macaronesia and East Africa. One of the best examples is the bellflower genus Canarina, comprising one species in the Canary Islands (C. canariensis), and two other species endemic to the Afromontane region of East Africa (C. eminii and C. abyssinica). T...

The “Rand Flora” is a disjunct floristic pattern that relates plant species distributed in the continental margins of Africa (Eastern and South Africa, Northwest Africa) and Macaronesia. One of the most extreme examples is genus Canarina (Platycodoneae, Campanulaceae), a small genus of three species, one of them endemic to the laurel forests of the...

Existe un enigmático patrón florístico que ha intrigado a científicos y naturalistas desde hace décadas. Consiste en una distribución de linajes de plantas emparentados que se encuentran distribuidos en regiones florísticas alrededor del continente africano, y separados por áreas de clima hostil. En biogeografía este tipo de distribuciones fragment...