BUSCADOR RECOLECTA

Esta base de datos contiene la densidad de las microalgas encontradas en 30 lagunas costeras de la costa pacífica de Nicaragua y Costa Rica en tres periodos de su año hidrológico: comienzo de las lluvias (junio 2010), plena inundación (septiembre 2010) y sequía (enero 2011). La recolección fue subsuperficial. En esta matriz de datos las filas son las diferentes especies encontradas y las columnas la muestra (laguna y fecha). Información geográfica y limnológica de las lagunas se puede encontrar en Sasa et al. (2015: Limnetica vol 34).

Esta matriz de datos contiene: a) el biovolumen de las especies encontradas en el punto llamado Molemocho del humedal de Las Tablas de Daimiel desde 1996 a 2002 muestreado mensualmente y b) el área de inundación del humedal en esos años. Los métodos de toma de muestras y observación, clasificación, recuento y cálculo del biovolumen, así como más información sobre el humedal se pueden encontrar, entre otras publicaciones en Rojo et al. 2012 (Trade-offs in plankton species richness arising from drought: insights from long-term data of a National Park wetland (central Spain). Biodversity and Consrvation. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10531-012-0307-1). La información de a) está ordenada en filas (cada especie) y columnas (cada fecha). Las unidades son micras cúbicas por mililitro. La información de b) se encuentra como dos filas últimas (rótulo de fecha y hectáreas de inundación) siendo las columnas de nuevo la fecha de la obtención del dato. El formato es CVS.

Esta base de datos contiene los valores de 24 variables (geográficas y limnológicas) de 30 lagunas costeras de la costa pacífica de Nicaragua y Costa Rica en tres periodos de su año hidrológico: comienzo de las lluvias (junio 2010), plena inundación (septiembre 2010) y sequía (enero 2011). En esta matriz de datos las filas son los cuerpos de agua muestreados y las columnas las variables. Cada periodo hidrológico muestreado se presenta en una hoja aparte. Descripción de estas lagunas basada en esta y en otra información se puede encontrar en Sasa et al. (2015: Limnetica vol 34).

Arabidopsis_data_279accessions_8jan14, The role that different life-history traits may have in the process of adaptation caused by divergent selection can be assessed by using extensive collections of geographically-explicit populations. This is because adaptive phenotypic variation shifts gradually across space as a result of the geographic patterns of variation in environmental selective pressures. Hence, large-scale experiments are needed to identify relevant adaptive life-history traits as well as their relationships with putative selective agents. We conducted a field experiment with 279 geo-referenced accessions of the annual plant Arabidopsis thaliana collected across a native region of its distribution range, the Iberian Peninsula. We quantified variation in life-history traits throughout the entire life cycle. We built a geographic information system to generate an environmental data set encompassing climate, vegetation and soil data. We analysed the spatial autocorrelation patterns of environmental variables and life-history traits, as well as the relationship between environmental and phenotypic data. Almost all environmental variables were significantly spatially autocorrelated. By contrast, only two life-history traits, seed weight and flowering time, exhibited significant spatial autocorrelation. Flowering time, and to a lower extent seed weight, were the life-history traits with the highest significant correlation coefficients with environmental factors, in particular with annual mean temperature. In general, individual fitness was higher for accessions with more vigorous seed germination, higher recruitment and later flowering times. Variation in flowering time mediated by temperature appears to be the main life-history trait by which A. thaliana adjusts its life history to the varying Iberian environmental conditions. The use of extensive geographically-explicit data sets obtained from field experiments represents a powerful approach to unravel adaptive patterns of variation. In a context of current global warming, geographically-explicit approaches, evaluating the match between organisms and the environments where they live, may contribute to better assess and predict the consequences of global warming., Peer reviewed

Data from: Matrix composition and patch edges influence plant-herbivore interactions in marine landscapes Ecological data from seagrass meadows located in the NW Mediterranean Sea. herbivory_seascape.zip, The functioning of ecosystems can be strongly driven by landscape attributes. Despite its importance, however, our understanding of how landscape influences ecosystem function derives mostly from species richness and abundance patterns, with few studies assessing how these relate to actual functional rates. We examined the influence of landscape attributes on the rates of herbivory in seagrass meadows, where herbivory has been identified as a key process structuring these relatively simple systems. The study was conducted in three representative Posidonia oceanica meadows. The principal herbivores in these meadows are the fish Sarpa salpa and the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus, and we hypothesised that differences in their interaction with landscape attributes would significantly influence herbivory rates. We measured herbivore abundance, herbivory rates, primary production and plant quality (C:N) in seagrass patches embedded either in rock or in sand (matrix attribute), in patches either near or far from a rocky reef (distance attribute) and at the edges and interior of meadows. Our results show that matrix and meadow edges significantly affected the actual levels of herbivory. Herbivory rates were higher in seagrass patches embedded in a rocky matrix compared to those on sand, and herbivory at the centre of seagrass meadows was higher than at the edges. In contrast, patch distance to rocky reefs did not affect herbivory. Neither herbivore abundance nor food quality explained the patterns across different landscape attributes. This suggests that variation in herbivory across the landscape may be related much more to behavioural differences between species in their evaluation of risk, movement, and food preference in relation to the landscape structure. Our results indicate that richness and abundance patterns may mask critical interactions between landscape attributes and species responses, which result in considerable heterogeneity in the way key functional processes like herbivory are distributed across the ecosystem mosaic., Peer reviewed

Genotype data sets Genotypes of the individuals analyzed in Sanchez-Donoso et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 2014. Genotypes Dryad_Sanchez-Donoso et al_Frontiers.xlsx, Interbreeding of two species in the wild implies introgression of alleles from one species into the other only when admixed individuals survive and successfully backcross with the parental species. Consequently, estimating the proportion of first generation hybrids in a population may not inform about the evolutionary impact of hybridization. Samples obtained over a long time span may offer a more accurate view of the spreading of introgressed alleles in a species’ gene pool. Common quail (Coturnix coturnix) populations in Europe have been restocked extensively with farm quails of hybrid origin (crosses with Japanese quails, C. japonica). We genetically monitored a common quail population over 15 years to investigate whether genetic introgression is occurring and used simulations to investigate our power to detect it. Our results revealed that some introgression has occurred, but we did not observe a significant increase over time in the proportion of admixed individuals. However, simulations showed that the degree of admixture may be larger than anticipated due to the limited power of analyses over a short time span, and that observed data was compatible with a low rate of introgression, probably resulting from reduced fitness of admixed individuals. Simulations predicted this could result in extensive admixture in the near future., Peer reviewed

E_arborea__E_australis_Genotypes Genotypes for the populations of Erica arborea and Erica australis in Gil-López et al., 2014, Many habitat specialist species are originally composed of small, discontinuous populations because their habitats are naturally fragmented or patchy. They may have suffered the long-term effects of natural patchiness. Mediterranean heathlands, a representative habitat in the Strait of Gibraltar region, are associated with nutrient-poor, acidic sandstone soils. Sandstone soil patches in the African side of the Strait (Tangier) are, in general, smaller and more scattered than in the European side (Algeciras). In this study, we analyze the effect of this sandstone patchiness on the population genetic diversity and structure of two Erica species from these Mediterranean heathlands that differ in their edaphic specificity, E. australis, sandstone specialist, and E. arborea, generalist. Average levels of within-population genetic diversity and gene flow between populations were significantly lower in Tangier (high sandstone patchiness) than in Algeciras (low patchiness) for the sandstone specialist, whereas no differences between both sides of the Strait were detected in the edaphic generalist. Since most endemic species in Mediterranean heathlands of the Strait of Gibraltar are sandstone specialists, these results highlight an increased vulnerability to loss of genetic diversity and local extinction of the heathland endemic flora in the Tangier side of the Strait of Gibraltar., Peer reviewed

crisp_dna DNA alignment of the cysteine rich secretory protein (CRISP) toxin family LAAO_dna DNA alignment of the L-amino acid oxidase (LAAO) toxin family lectin_dna DNA alignment of the C-type lectin (CTL) toxin family pla2_dna DNA alignment of the phospholipase A2 (PLA2) toxin family serine_protease_dna DNA alignment of the serine protease (SP) toxin family svmp_dna DNA alignment of the snake venom metalloproteinase (SVMP) toxin family, Variation in venom composition is a ubiquitous phenomenon in snakes and occurs both interspecifically and intraspecifically. Venom variation can have severe outcomes for snakebite victims by rendering the specific antibodies found in antivenoms ineffective against heterologous toxins found in different venoms. The rapid evolutionary expansion of different toxin-encoding gene families in different snake lineages is widely perceived as the main cause of venom variation. However, this view is simplistic and disregards the understudied influence that processes acting on gene transcription and translation may have on the production of the venom proteome. Here, we assess the venom composition of six related viperid snakes and compare interspecific changes in the number of toxin genes, their transcription in the venom gland, and their translation into proteins secreted in venom. Our results reveal that multiple levels of regulation are responsible for generating variation in venom composition between related snake species. We demonstrate that differential levels of toxin transcription, translation, and their posttranslational modification have a substantial impact upon the resulting venom protein mixture. Notably, these processes act to varying extents on different toxin paralogs found in different snakes and are therefore likely to be as important as ancestral gene duplication events for generating compositionally distinct venom proteomes. Our results suggest that these processes may also contribute to altering the toxicity of snake venoms, and we demonstrate how this variability can undermine the treatment of a neglected tropical disease, snakebite., Peer reviewed

Euphorbia nicaeensis AFLP data matrix AFLP genotypes for E. nicaeensis individuals in 40 plots. "Open" refers to plots of non-facilitated individuals, while "Facilit" refers to plots of individuals growing under Juniperus sabina shrubs. Rows correspond to individual plants, while columns are the 112 loci genotyped. This is a tab-delimited text file. Euphorbia.nicaeensis.AFLP.data.txt, Plant facilitation is a positive interaction where a nurse or nurse plant community alters the local conditions, improving the life-time fitness of other beneficiary plants. In stressful environments, a common consequence is the formation of discrete vegetation patches under nurse plants, surrounded by open space. The consequences of such spatial patterns have been studied mostly at the community level. At the population level, facilitation causes a distribution of beneficiary individuals that could have intra-specific genetic consequences. The spatial patchiness and the increase in local aggregation can potentially affect the population fine-scale genetic structure. In addition, marked microenvironmental differences under nurses versus outside could lead to plastic phenotypic variation between facilitated and non-facilitated individuals, as for example reproductive asynchrony, potentially producing assortative mating. This study tests the hypothesis that plant facilitation can have genetic consequences for the population of a beneficiary plant (Euphorbia nicaeensis) by affecting its spatial genetic structure and mating patterns between subpopulations of facilitated and non-facilitated individuals. Facilitation in this system creates an aggregated distribution of beneficiary individuals compared to a minority of non-facilitated individuals that grow on the open ground. Facilitation also leads to slight phenological differences mediated by strong microenvironmental differences created by nurses compared to the open ground. Yet a molecular analysis showed that, although there is fine scale spatial genetic structure in this system, there is no evidence that it is caused by facilitation. Numerical simulations further showed that spatial genetic patterns in the population are little influenced by the phenological mismatch observed in the field. Synthesis. Facilitation leads to the strong spatial aggregation of beneficiary plants and desynchronizes their flowering phenology, but the magnitude of these effects is not enough to have local genetic consequences in our study system. Facilitation seems thus to have a homogenizing role by allowing the persistence of a diverse gene pool in populations in harsh environments, rather than fomenting genetic differentiation. Further information on other systems where facilitation produces stronger spatial or phenological effects on facilitated plants is needed to fill the large knowledge gap we have on the genetic effects of facilitation., Peer reviewed

Gabon_dryad_fish_data Data description: Date – MM/DD/YYYY ; Reef – Gabon ; STATION – Rig1……Rig10 ; Latitude – Decimal degrees, WGS 1984 ; Longitude - Decimal degrees, WGS 1984 ; Depth_m- depth in meters ; Depth_stratum - DIVER – AMF = Alan Friedlander ; TRANSECT = A, B, C, D ; Taxon – lowest possible scientific name ; num_m^2 – numerical abundance in number per meter squared ; g_m^2 – biomass in grams per meter squared, The marine biodiversity of Gabon, West Africa has not been well studied and is largely unknown. Our examination of marine communities associated with oil platforms in Gabon is the first scientific investigation of these structures and highlights the unique ecosystems associated with them. A number of species previously unknown to Gabonese waters were recorded during our surveys on these platforms. Clear distinctions in benthic communities were observed between older, larger platforms in the north and newer platforms to the south or closer to shore. The former were dominated by a solitary cup coral, Tubastraea sp., whereas the latter were dominated by the barnacle Megabalanus tintinnabulum, but with more diverse benthic assemblages compared to the northerly platforms. Previous work documented the presence of limited zooxanthellated scleractinian corals on natural rocky substrate in Gabon but none were recorded on platforms. Total estimated fish biomass on these platforms exceeded one ton at some locations and was dominated by barracuda (Sphyraena spp.), jacks (Carangids), and rainbow runner (Elagatis bipinnulata). Thirty-four percent of fish species observed on these platforms are new records for Gabon and 6% are new to tropical West Africa. Fish assemblages closely associated with platforms had distinct amphi-Atlantic affinities and platforms likely extend the distribution of these species into coastal West Africa. At least one potential invasive species, the snowflake coral (Carijoa riisei), was observed on the platforms. Oil platforms may act as stepping stones, increasing regional biodiversity and production but they may also be vectors for invasive species. Gabon is a world leader in terrestrial conservation with a network of protected areas covering >10% of the country. Oil exploration and biodiversity conservation currently co-exist in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems in Gabon. Efforts to increase marine protection in Gabon may benefit by including oil platforms in the marine protected area design process., Peer reviewed