Yurena Arjona

University of La Laguna | ULL · Department of Botany Ecology and Plant Physiology

The Canary Islands harbor four species of the genus Reichardia according to the current knowledge. Three of them are endemic to the archipelago, one is widespread but probably also native. The discovery of a putative population of R. intermedia on La Gomera as a fifth Reichardia species triggered the revisiting of neglected historical occurrence re...

Las invasiones biológicas representan una de las amenazas de origen humano más importantes para la biodiversidad en islas oceánicas, junto con el cambio climático y la destrucción del hábitat. Este capítulo analiza los mecanismos que han impulsado el aumento de especies de plantas introducidas e invasoras en las islas Canarias, diferenciando entre...

Astydamia latifolia is the only species of the genus Astydamia, which forms an early‐diverging lineage of Apiaceae, subfamily Apioideae. This species is subendemic to the Canary Islands and one of the most representative species of the coastal environments of this archipelago. Astydamia displays diplochory, that is, diaspores with two long‐distance...

Catastrophic flank collapses are recognized as important drivers of insular biodiversity dynamics, through the disruption of species ranges and subsequent allopatric divergence. However, little empirical data supports this conjecture, with their evolutionary consequences remaining poorly understood. Using genome‐wide data within a population genomi...

Catastrophic flank collapses are recognised as important drivers of insular biodiversity dynamics, through the disruption of species ranges and subsequent allopatric divergence. However, little empirical data supports this conjecture, with their evolutionary consequences remaining poorly understood. Using genome-wide data within a population genomi...

Aim Understanding the historical and contemporaneous drivers of invasion success in island systems can decisively contribute to identifying sources and pathways that are more likely to give rise to new invaders. Based on a floristic‐driven approach, we aimed at determining the origins of the invasive alien flora of the Canary Islands and shedding l...

Soils harbour a rich arthropod fauna, but many species are still not formally described (Linnaean shortfall) and the distribution of those already described is poorly understood (Wallacean shortfall). Metabarcoding holds much promise to fill this gap, however, nuclear copies of mitochondrial genes, and other artefacts lead to taxonomic inflation, w...

Most of our understanding of island diversity comes from the study of aboveground systems, while the patterns and processes of diversification and community assembly for belowground biotas remain poorly understood. Here we take advantage of a relatively young and dynamic oceanic island to advance our understanding of eco‐evolutionary processes driv...

Aim Specialisation to the soil environment is expected to constrain the spatial scale of diversification within animal lineages. In this context, flightless arthropod lineages, adapted to soil environments, but with broad geographical ranges, represent something of an anomaly. Here we investigate the diversification process within one such ‘anomalo...

Most of our understanding of island diversity comes from the study of aboveground systems, while the patterns and processes of diversification and community assembly for belowground biotas remain poorly understood. Here we take advantage of a relatively young and dynamic oceanic island to advance our understanding of eco-evolutionary processes driv...

To what extent do parallel and unique local adaptation occur along elevational gradients? In a reciprocal transplant experiment, Bachmann and Van Buskirk (2020) found stronger evidence for parallel adaptation to elevation than for unique local adaptation in Rana temporaria populations of the Swiss Alps. This finding has important implications for u...

Aim Coastal plants are terrestrial organisms for which ocean surface currents often act as long‐distance dispersal vectors (thalassochorous species) favouring broad distributions and connecting distant populations. However, few studies have statistically assessed the role of currents in modulating gene flow and species distributions of terrestrial...

Understanding the distribution of species has aroused scientific interest since ancient times. In this study, we intend to hypothesize a possible dispersal mechanism that allows us to understand the current distribution of Astydamia latifolia in the Canary Islands. The study of the fruits by scanning electron microscopy allowed to verify the existe...

Dispersal is the process that allows organisms to reach new suitable territories and expand their area of occupancy. In plants, long-distance dispersal (LDD) of diaspores is related to the presence of morphological structures (dispersal syndromes) that favor mobility by wind (anemochorous), sea currents (thalasochorous) and animals (epizoochorous a...

Plant conservation is one of the main aspects about ecosystem conservation, since plants play an essential role in the relationships among organisms. Its distribution area may be conditioned not only by the diaspore dispersal specializations but also by habitat suitability. Oceanic islands are an ideal scenario to study the colonization process of...

Oceanic islands emerge lifeless from the seafloor and are separated from continents by long stretches of sea. Consequently, all their species had to overcome this stringent dispersal filter, making these islands ideal systems to study the biogeographic implications of long-distance dispersal (LDD). It has long been established that the capacity of...

A great number of scientific papers claim that angiosperm diversification is manifested by an ample differentiation of diaspore traits favoring long-distance seed dispersal. Oceanic islands offer an ideal framework to test whether the acquisition of multiple sets of diaspore traits (syndromes) by a single species results in a wider geographic distr...