Rosario G. Gavilán

Complutense University of Madrid | UCM · Department of Pharmacology Pharmacognosy and Botany

Background Plant communities of fragmented agricultural landscapes, are subject to patch isolation and scale-dependent effects. Variation in configuration, composition, and distance from one another affect biological processes of disturbance, productivity, and the movement ecology of species. However, connectivity and spatial structuring among thes...

Aims Understanding fine-grain diversity patterns across large spatial extents is fundamental for macroecological research and biodiversity conservation. Using the GrassPlot database, we provide benchmarks of fine-grain richness values of Palaearctic open habitats for vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens and complete vegetation (i.e., the sum of the...

Aim The number of naturalized (i.e. established) alien species has increased rapidly over recent centuries. Given the differences in environmental tolerances among species, little is known about what factors determine the extent to which the observed size of the naturalized range of a species and hence the extent to which the observed richness of n...

Questions The human‐related spread of alien plants has serious environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Therefore, it is important to know which habitats are most threatened by invasion and why. We studied a wide range of European grasslands to assess: (a) which alien species are the most successful invaders in grasslands; (b) how invasion levels d...

Albeit the remarkably high Ultraviolet B loads, high temperatures, and drought stress substantiate the need for efficient photoprotective strategies in Mediterranean high-mountain plants, these remain understudied. Considering the sensitivity of photosystems to extreme conditions, we evaluated an environmental gradient’s weight on the photoprotecti...

Aim Alpine habitats support unique biodiversity confined to high‐elevation areas in the current interglacial. Plant diversity in these habitats may respond to area, environment, connectivity and isolation, yet these factors have been rarely evaluated in concert. Here we investigate major determinants of regional species pools in alpine grasslands,...

Despite the constraining weight of summer drought over plant life which distinguishes Mediterranean high-mountains, and its anticipated exacerbation under the current climate crisis, there is still little knowledge of the underlying drought-endurance mechanisms in Mediterranean high-mountain species, such as osmolyte accumulation. To fill this gap,...

Aim The EUNIS Habitat Classification is a widely used reference framework for European habitat types (habitats), but it lacks formal definitions of individual habitats that would enable their unequivocal identification. Our goal was to develop a tool for assigning vegetation‐plot records to the habitats of the EUNIS system, use it to classify a Eur...

Cómo citar este artículo / How to cite this paper: López-Sáez, J.A.; Sánchez-Mata, D.; Alba-Sánchez, F.; Luelmo-Lautenschlaeger, R.; Gavilán, R.G.; Pérez-Díaz, S.; Abel-Schaad, D. (2020). Contribución paleoambiental a la sectorización biogeográfica de la Sierra de Gredos (Ávila, Sistema Central): el Subsector Paramero-Serrotense como caso de estudi...

The sensitivity of stomatal behavior and patterning (i.e., distribution, density, size) to environmental stimuli, renders them crucial for defining the physiological performance of leaves. Thus, assessing long-term modifications in stomatal traits in conserved specimens arises as a valuable eco-physiological approach to predict how the rising trend...

The relationship between climate and plants was noted as long ago as the third century BC by Theophrastus (Hort 1916), who highlighted the importance of climate in plant distribution through direct and experimental observation. The ideas of this thinker were developed no further until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century—aided by the in...

Vegetation is the most easily recognisable component of the ecosystem, and is the result of the joint action of environmental factors: it reflects climate, the nature of the soil, the availability of water and nutrients, and biotic and anthropic factors. It therefore acts as an indicator of the characteristics and status of ecosystems (Whittaker 19...

The vegetation addressed in this book is, biologically, one of the most diverse on Earth, with many characteristic taxa offering refuge and food sources for many resident and migratory animals. Yet the forests of Las Yungas remain poorly known from a floristic and vegetation point of view. This book seeks to fill that gap by studying the distributi...

The flora of the province of Jujuy is one of the most diverse in the Republic of Argentina. It comprises a total of 170 families, 972 genera and 2831 species distributed in the various ecological belts and plant formations throughout the region. According to these figures, the study area contains a representation of 39% the families, 20% of the gen...

Serranías de Zapla Multiple Use Ecology Reserve has a high environmental and biological diversity. It is in the sector with the highest biodiversity in Las Yungas and forms part of a biological corridor that connects several national and foreign protected areas. An area of 7730 ha (21%) located at the northern extreme of the zone are part of the La...

The composition and distribution of the vegetation in the subtropical montane forests of the Serranías de Zapla Multiple Use Ecology Reserve was determined using the phytosociological methodology of the Zurich-Montpellier school (Braun-Blanquet 1979) adapted to the study area, which allowed the identification and delimitation of the different plant...

Serranías de Zapla Multiple Use Ecology Reserve is located in the Department of Palpalá, in Jujuy province. It is delimited by the geographic coordinates 24°09′–24°21’S and 65°1′–65°14’W, and has an area of 37,139 ha, with altitudes ranging from 834 to 2183 m asl. Within this altitudinal range, the forest extends along an altitudinal gradient of 60...

Increasing evidence indicates that in wild ecosystems plant viruses are important ecological agents, and with potential to jump into crops, but only recently the diversity and population dynamics of wild plant viruses have started to be explored. Theory proposes that biotic factors (ecosystem biodiversity, host abundance and host density, among oth...

A complete synthesis of the halophytic vegetation of Alicante province (east Spain) is presented

High‐mountain areas provide excellent opportunities to study the effects of combined abiotic stresses on plant physiology given their variety of steep ecological gradients, low anthropogenic disturbance, and remarkable levels of taxonomic diversity. Efficient photoprotective and antioxidant scavenging mechanisms are vital for survival in high‐mount...

GrassPlot is a collaborative vegetation-plot database organised by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) and listed in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD ID EU-00-003). GrassPlot collects plot records (relevés) from grasslands and other open habitats of the Palaearctic biogeographic realm. It focuses on precisely delimited plots...

Iberian Mediterranean forests are mainly dominated by Quercus species, which belong to different sections of the genus characterized by the condition of leaves, sclerophyllous vs. deciduous. There are also other Fagaceae-dominated forests such as beech forest, but they are considered relict and have a restricted distribution on mountains. Sclerophy...

Background: High-mountain pine forests and broom communities in central Spain today have led to contrasting interpretations of their natural or human-induced origin. Aims: We evaluated the vulnerability and resilience of high-mountain Pinus sylvestris/P. nigra forests and derived Cytisus broom scrub communities to climate and anthropogenic disturba...

Through litter decomposition enormous amount of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to understand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litte...

Through litter decomposition enormous amounts of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to under-stand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litt...

The Sistema Central or Central Range has an overall length of 600 km and is the most extensive mountain range on the Iberian Peninsula. It has an alpine orogeny and is located in the centre of the peninsula running northeast-southwest in its eastern part (Ayllón and Guadarrama ranges), and east-west in its western part (Guadarrama, Gredos and Estrê...

Our objective was to study the high-mountain grasslands growing on siliceous substrata on the Iberian Peninsula to determine the floristic patterns and affinities that best define the structure and the phytosociological classification of this vegetation. Cantabrian Range, Sierra Nevada, Sistema Central, Sistema Ibérico and the Pyrenees. We analysed...

Aims: Syntaxonomic classification is widely used for vegetation survey in Europe. The long history of its use has produced many concepts and names of vegetation units that need to be revised and integrated into a single classification system. Here we (1) present a new, global hierarchical syntaxonomic systems of alliances, orders, classes of the Br...

Pure and mixed high-mountain natural pine forest vegetation of the Gredos range (central Spain) was studied using 57 relevés and multivariate analyses (hierarchical cluster analysis and detrended correspondence analysis). Classification of the relevés resulted in 7 vegetation units, 3 of which were ranked as associations and only one as subassociat...

In the alpine life zone, plant diversity is strongly determined by local topography and microclimate. We assessed the extent to which aspect and its relatedness to temperature affect plant species diversity, and the colonization and disappearance of species on alpine summits on a pan-European scale. Mountain summits in Europe's alpine life zone. Va...

The facilitative effects of “foundation species” on community diversity and composition in alpine systems can be strong, but the strength of these effects often varies along gradients that occur above tree line. Here, we explore the effects of foundation species above and below tree line, a globally consistent and often abrupt climatic and ecologic...

The European Vegetation Archive (EVA) has been developed since 2012 by the IAVS Working Group European Vegetation Survey as a centralized database of European vegetation plots. It stores copies of national and regional vegetation-plot databases on a single software platform. Data storage in EVA does not affect the ongoing independent development of...

Deciduous forests occur widely in central-western Europe as far south as the Iberian Peninsula. In this area dominated by a Mediterranean-type climate, the marcescent endemic Quercus pyrenaica Willd. serves as an indicator of the southern limit of broad-leaved forests. Its distribution area extends from southwest France to northeast Morocco, occupy...

Therophytic non nitrophilous communities growing on deep inland sandy soils and coastal dunes of the Mediterranean Region have been studied. We have summarised the current status of this type of vegetation, analysing the variability of described syntaxa, based on their floristic composition and geographic distribution. All available relevés were ar...

Aims The introduction of potentially invasive species through ornamental cultivation or for rehabilitation purposes is a serious environmental problem. They cause damage to biodiversity through loss, increased mortality or ‘in situ’ selection phenomena in natural flora. Spartium junceum is a Mediterranean shrub that is not native in most areas of t...

A drier climate together with intense management can be detrimental for species when they are found at their xeric limit. We analyzed the dynamics of Pinus syl-vestris in Central Spain in relation to colonization by more drought-tolerant Quercus pyrenaica. The studied forest presents high biodiversity and is one of the last stands relict from a wid...

The aim of this work was to study the sensibility to warming of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition in Mediterranean high mountain areas. Thus, we investigated the effects of temperature, C availability and vegetation in a Mediterranean high-mountain area in relation to SOM decomposition patterns. Along an altitudinal gradient (from 2100 to 238...

We assess how effectively the current network of protected areas (PAs) across the Iberian Penin-sula will conserve plant diversity under near-future (2020) climate change. We computed 3267 MAXENT environmental niche models (ENMs) at 1-km spatial resolution for known Iberian plant species under two climate scenarios (1950-2000 baseline & 2020). To p...

blanquer lorite, j.m., gutiérrez girón, a. & gavilán, r.g. Importance of climatic data analysis for biodiversity studies in Mediterranean mountains of the Iberian Peninsula. Lazaroa 35: 197-201 (2014). recent studies on climate change and the development of international scientific nets for the observation and analysis of global warming on the biod...

Entrocassi, G.S., Hormigo, D.F., Gavilán, R.G. & Sánchez-Mata, D. Bioclimatic Typology of Jujuy province (Argentina). Lazaroa 35: 07-18 (2014). We report for the first time the Bioclimatic Typology of Jujuy Province (Argentina) as a result of the characterization performed following the methodology of the Bioclimatic Classification of Earth. Temper...

A total of 75 surface samples collected from mosses in the Quercus pyrenaica forests of the Spanish Central System mountains were analysed for their pollen content. The samples were taken from six different Quercus pyrenaica phytosociological associations between 443 and 1657 m a.s.l. and fall within distinct rainfall and temperature regimes. The a...