Romeu-Dalmau C., Espadaler X., Piñol J. (2016) Management implications of earwigs' overwintering sites in a Mediterranean citrus grove. International Journal of Pest Management. : 1-6.EnllaçDoi: 10.1080/09670874.2015.1129079
To promote earwigs as natural enemies of pests, or to control their populations if they damage crops, earwigs can be managed during their overwintering period on the ground. Here, we obtained more than a ton of soil to study earwigs' overwintering sites in a citrus grove. We found four species of earwigs: Forficula pubescens, Euborellia annulipes, Euborellia moesta, and Nala lividipes. Surprisingly, and although the European earwig Forficula auricularia is abundant in the citrus canopies the rest of the year, we did not find any F. auricularia, indicating that this species spends the winter outside the citrus grove. Therefore, farmers willing to manage European earwig populations in citrus orchards need to consider the possibility that earwigs may spend the winter outside the field. Earwigs that were overwintering in the citrus grove were more abundant at the south side beneath the canopies than at the north side or between rows, indicating that management practices such as soil tillage can impact overwintering earwigs only beneath the canopies, but not between citrus rows. Overall, our results provide insights into how earwig populations can be successfully managed during winter in citrus orchards. © 2016 Taylor & Francis
Ruiz-Benito, P., García-Valdés, R. (2016) Inventarios forestales para el estudio de patrones y procesos en Ecología. Ecosistemas. 25: 1-5.EnllaçDoi: 10.7818/ECOS.2016.25-3.01
Ruiz-Benito, P., Ratcliffe, S., Jump, A.S., Gómez-Aparicio, L., Madrigal-González, J., Wirth, C., Kändler, G., Lehtonen, A., Dahlgren, J., Kattge, J., Zavala, M.A. (2016) Functional diversity underlies demographic responses to environmental variation in European forests. Global Ecology and Biogeography. : 0-0.EnllaçDoi: 10.1111/geb.12515
Ruiz-Carbayo, H., Bonal, R., Espelta, J.M., Hernández, M., Pino, J. (2016) Community assembly in time and space: The case of Lepidoptera in a Quercus ilex L. savannah-like landscape. Insect Conservation and Diversity. : 0-0.EnllaçDoi: 10.1111/icad.12184
Ruiz-Suárez N., Melero Y., Giela A., Henríquez-Hernández L.A., Sharp E., Boada L.D., Taylor M.J., Camacho M., Lambin X., Luzardo O.P., Hartley G. (2016) Rate of exposure of a sentinel species, invasive American mink (Neovison vison) in Scotland, to anticoagulant rodenticides. Science of the Total Environment. : 0-0.EnllaçDoi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.06.109
Anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs) are highly toxic compounds that are exclusively used for the control of rodent pests. Despite their defined use, they are nonetheless found in a large number of non-target species indicating widespread penetration of wildlife. Attempts to quantify the scale of problem are complicated by non-random sampling of individuals tested for AR contamination. The American mink (Neovison vison) is a wide ranging, non-native, generalist predator that is subject to wide scale control efforts in the UK. Exposure to eight ARs was determined in 99 mink trapped in NE Scotland, most of which were of known age. A high percentage (79%) of the animals had detectable residues of at least one AR, and more than 50% of the positive animals had two or more ARs. The most frequently detected compound was bromadiolone (75% of all animals tested), followed by difenacoum (53% of all mink), coumatetralyl (22%) and brodifacoum (9%). The probability of mink exposure to ARs increased by 4.5% per month of life, and was 1.7 times higher for mink caught in areas with a high, as opposed to a low, density of farms. The number of AR compounds acquired also increased with age and with farm density. No evidence was found for sexual differences in the concentration and number of ARs. The wide niche and dietary overlap of mink with several native carnivore species, and the fact that American mink are culled for conservation throughout Europe, suggest that this species may act as a sentinel species, and the application of these data to other native carnivores is discussed. © 2016 The Authors.
Sancho-Knapik, D., Medrano, H., Peguero-Pina, J.J., Mencuccini, M., Fariñas, M.D., Álvarez-Arenas, T.G., Gil-Pelegrín, E. (2016) The application of leaf ultrasonic resonance to vitis vinifera L. suggests the existence of a diurnal osmotic adjustment subjected to photosynthesis. Frontiers in Plant Science. 7: 0-0.EnllaçDoi: 10.3389/fpls.2016.01601
Sardans J., Alonso R., Carnicer J., Fernández-Martínez M., Vivanco M.G., Peñuelas J. (2016) Factors influencing the foliar elemental composition and stoichiometry in forest trees in Spain. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics. 18: 52-69.EnllaçDoi: 10.1016/j.ppees.2016.01.001
Concentrations of nutrient elements in organisms and in the abiotic environment are key factors influencing ecosystem structure and function. We studied how concentrations and stoichiometries of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) in leaves of forest trees are related to phylogeny and to environmental factors (mean annual precipitation, mean annual temperature, forest type, and nitrogen deposition). Using data for 4691 forest plots from across Spain, we tested the following hypotheses: (i) that foliar stoichiometries of forest trees are strongly influenced by phylogeny, (ii) that climate, as an important driver of plant uptake and nutrient use efficiency, affects foliar stoichiometry, (iii) that long-term loads of N influence N, P and K concentrations and ratios in natural vegetation, and (iv) that sympatric species are differentiated according to their foliar stoichiometry, thereby reducing the intensity of resource competition. Our analyses revealed that several factors contributed to interspecific variation in elemental composition and stoichiometry. These included phylogeny, forest type, climate, N deposition, and competitive neighborhood relationships (probably related to niche segregation effect).These findings support the notion that foliar elemental composition reflects adaptation both to regional factors such as climate and to local factors such as competition with co-occurring species. © 2016 Elsevier GmbH.
Sardans, J., Bartrons, M., Margalef, O., Gargallo-Garriga, A., Janssens, I.A., Ciais, P., Obersteiner, M., Sigurdsson, B.D., Chen, H.Y.H., Peñuelas, J. (2016) Plant invasion is associated with higher plant-soil nutrient concentrations in nutrient-poor environments. Global Change Biology. : 0-0.EnllaçDoi: 10.1111/gcb.13384
Sass-Klaassen U., Fonti P., Cherubini P., Gričar J., Robert E.M.R., Steppe K., Bräuning A. (2016) A tree-centered approach to assess impacts of extreme climatic events on forests. Frontiers in Plant Science. 7: 0-0.EnllaçDoi: 10.3389/fpls.2016.01069
[No abstract available]
Sayol F., Lefebvre L., Sol D. (2016) Relative brain size and its relation with the associative pallium in birds. Brain, Behavior and Evolution. 87: 69-77.EnllaçDoi: 10.1159/000444670
Despite growing interest in the evolution of enlarged brains, the biological significance of brain size variation remains controversial. Much of the controversy is over the extent to which brain structures have evolved independently of each other (mosaic evolution) or in a coordinated way (concerted evolution). If larger brains have evolved by the increase of different brain regions in different species, it follows that comparisons of the whole brain might be biologically meaningless. Such an argument has been used to criticize comparative attempts to explain the existing variation in whole-brain size among species. Here, we show that pallium areas associated with domain-general cognition represent a large fraction of the entire brain, are disproportionally larger in large-brained birds and accurately predict variation in the whole brain when allometric effects are appropriately accounted for. While this does not question the importance of mosaic evolution, it suggests that examining specialized, small areas of the brain is not very helpful for understanding why some birds have evolved such large brains. Instead, the size of the whole brain reflects consistent variation in associative pallium areas and hence is functionally meaningful for comparative analyses. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.
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