Proyectos
      Proyecto REMEDINAL
      Proyecto VULGLO
      Proyecto CONSOLIDER-MONTES
      Proyecto EU BACCARA
      Proyecto EU FUNDIV
      Proyecto ECOCLIM
      Proyecto EXPERTAL
      Proyecto RASINV
      Proyecto ECOFIARB
      Proyecto TALMED
       
 
Proyecto VULGO
"Vulnerabilidad de poblaciones de plantas leñosas mediterráneas al cambio global: efectos interactivos de la marginalidad y la fragmentación sobre su regeneración" (VULGLO). Referencia CGL2010-22180-C03-03. /BOS Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.
 
 
 
     
 
 
     
 
 
     
  Summary

Effects of global change drivers on the local persistence of plant populations should be interactive rather than additive. In particular, climate change and human-driven fragmentation are expected to interact by both hampering migration routes following climate change and by modifying local selective pressures derived from both abiotic and biotic interactions. Mediterranean woody plants depend on keystone mutualists for successful regeneration. Mutualisms are often conditional, and the outcome depends on climatic conditions (e.g. facilitation/competition with nurse shrubs) and on habitat structure and biogeographic traits influencing the abundance and distribution of pollinators, herbivores and seed dispersers. A large body of literature demonstrates the effects of fragmentation on the populations and communities of both nurse shrubs and keystone animal mutualists of woody plants. Fragmentation effects tend to vary predictably with marginality within species' ranges, at least for birds, thus giving rise to species-specific interactions between marginality and fragmentation within focal plant's ranges for the community of keystone mutualists that have been little explored to date. Insular-continental effects will even enlarge these geographical changes in the structure and composition of keystone mutualist communities due to species impoverishment of insular biotas. Changing interactive effects of mutualist communities would likely influence adaptive responses of individual plants (phenotypic and ecological plasticities) to varying functional heterogeneity of landscapes as 'perceived' by plant seeds, seedlings and recruits. VULGLO is aimed at understanding how fragmentation and insularity influences keystone mutualist communities, how these influences vary within focal plant's species ranges, and how changing interactive scenarios modulate plant's adaptive responses at the individual level. This understanding is crucial to predict responses of woody plant populations to global change.

VULGLO combines plant and animal demography with plant ecophysiology, evolutionary ecology and community ecology to unveil direct and indirect effects of two main drivers of global change (climate and fragmentation) on the effective recruitment of woody plants. Holm Oak (Quercus ilex) is chosen as the main target plant species due to its ecological relevance and to the information and experience available in the research group, which allows a realistic approach to a truly multidisciplinary research. Results in the Iberian Peninsula will be explored together with those in Balearic Islands to estimate the influence of insularity on the network of interactions and effects between actors and drivers

 
     
Prof. Dr. Fernando Valladares Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales CSIC .
Serrano 115 dpdo.E-28006 Madrid. Spain
Phone 34 917452500 ext 988120. Fax 34 915640800
e-mail: [email protected]
 
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