Biology subjects

Calatayud, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Calatayud, J..

8 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Which, when and where traits matter: functional trait-mediated species associations shift with microenvironmental and climatic variation

O_LIPredicting coexistence in species-rich plant communities requires understanding the role of functional traits in species interactions and their resilience to environmental variation. C_LIO_LIIn a manipulative factorial field experiment in an annual community (>45,000 individuals and 45 species), we followed plant associations from seedling to adult on both preserved and altered biological soil crust over two years with contrasting weather conditions. Neighborhood models quantified how among-species differences in key functional traits affected coexistence and how these effects varied in response to ontogenetic stage, environmental variation and spatial scale. C_LIO_LITrait-based models revealed a prevalent negative relationship between functional differences and species associations, but these relationships varied predictively with stage, environment and spatial scale. Functional dissimilarity in traits such as specific leaf area, seed mass, and reproductive-to-vegetative biomass ratio consistently mediated species segregation, especially during wet years and among seedlings, while biological soil crust disturbance altered trait-mediated associations differently at fine and coarse spatial scales. C_LIO_LITrait-mediated species associations shift predictably with environmental variation, suggesting that coexistence reflects a dynamic balance between environmental filtering and competitive interactions. This work provides novel experimental evidence of when, where, and which traits predict community assembly, which has implications for forecasting biodiversity responses to global environmental change. C_LI

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Indirect interactions driven by soil effects enable coexistence among competing plant species

Reciprocal effects between plants and soil have been proposed as mechanisms that promote coexistence. However, recent theoretical and empirical works have questioned their role in stabilizing coexistence within multispecies communities. In these systems, indirect interactions mediated by plant-soil feedback may play a pivotal but often overlooked role. We investigate these indirect interactions using an experimental system of two competing shrub species grown in soil conditioned by a third tree species. Tree-induced shifts in soil microbial communities, metabolites, and nutrients boost growth in the weak competitor species while reducing germination in the dominant competitor. Simulations demonstrate that these shifts in plant performance are sufficient to stabilize coexistence and to closely reproduce natural spatial distribution patterns. Our findings underscore the role of plant-soil feedback in driving indirect interactions that sustain coexistence in diverse plant communities, highlighting the importance of indirect but also positive and negative multitrophic interactions in maintaining biodiversity.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Forest structural diversity determines tree growth synchrony in response to climate change

After centuries of deforestation, many industrialised countries are experiencing an increase in forest area and biomass due to changes in land- and forest-use since the mid-20th century. At the same time, the impacts of climate change on forests are aggravating, but the interplay between past land- and forest-use (i.e. land- and forest-use legacies) and climate change in forest functioning remains elusive. Here using network theory and linear mixed models, we quantified how land- and forest-use legacies modulate tree growth synchrony in response to climate change. We analysed tree growth data from European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) stands with different histories of forest management at the species rear edge. We found that tree growth synchrony increased following heatwaves, late spring frosts, and reduced precipitation. Interestingly, the greatest tree growth synchrony occurred in recently-established forests, while stands containing large trees and heterogeneous tree sizes showed much lower growth synchrony. Our results highlight the importance of maintaining large trees and structurally heterogeneous forests to mitigate the negative effects of climate change on forest productivity, and thereby, increase forest resilience to future forest climate risks.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Multidimensionality in the thermal niches of dung beetles could limit species' responses to temperature changes

Understanding the consequences of climate change requires understanding how temperature controls species responses across key biological aspects, as well as the coordination of thermal responses across these aspects. We study the role of temperature in determining the species diel, seasonal, and geographical occurrence, using dung beetles as a model system. We found that temperature has relatively low -but not negligible- effects in the three spatiotemporal scales, once accounting for alternative factors. More importantly, the estimated thermal responses were largely incongruent across scales. This shows that species have multidimensional thermal niches, entailing that adjustments to fulfil temperature requirements for one biological aspect, such as seasonal ontogenetic cycles, may result in detrimental effects on other aspects, like diel activity. These trade-offs can expose individuals to inadequate temperatures, reducing populations performance. Paradoxically, the relatively weak effects of temperature we found may have serious consequences for species responses to warming if temperature regulates essential aspects of species biology in divergent ways.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Low-Latitude Origins of the Four Phanerozoic Evolutionary Faunas

The hypothesis of the Great Evolutionary Faunas is a foundational concept of macroevolutionary research postulating that three global mega-assemblages have dominated Phanerozoic oceans following abrupt biotic transitions. Empirical estimates of this large-scale pattern depend on several methodological decisions and are based on approaches unable to capture multiscale dynamics of the underlying Earth-Life System. Combining a multilayer network representation of fossil data with a multilevel clustering that eliminates the subjectivity inherent to distance-based approaches, we demonstrate that Phanerozoic oceans sequentially harbored four global benthic mega-assemblages. Shifts in dominance patterns among these global marine mega-assemblages are abrupt (end-Cambrian 494 Ma; end-Permian 252 Ma) or protracted (mid-Cretaceous 129 Ma), and represent the three major biotic transitions in Earths history. This finding suggests that the mid-Cretaceous radiation of the so-called Modern evolutionary Fauna, concurrent with gradual ecological changes associated with the Mesozoic Marine Revolution, triggered a biotic transition comparably to the transition following the largest extinction event in the Phanerozoic. Overall, our study supports the notion that both long-term ecological changes and major geological events have played crucial roles in shaping mega-assemblages that dominated Phanerozoic oceans.

paleontology↗

bioRxiv2019

Regularities in species niches reveal the World's climatic regions

Although classifications of the Earths climates date back to the ancient Greeks, the climatic regions shaping the distribution of animals remain poorly resolved. Here we present a classification of global climates based on regularities in realised niches of 3657 amphibians, 7204 reptiles, 10684 birds and 4574 mammals. We found 16 main climatic regions that are mostly consistent across groups and previous plant expert-based classifications, confirming the existence of major climatic restrictions for life. The results also suggest that differences among groups likely relate to their particular adaptations and dispersal capabilities. We further show how the integration of species niche classifications with geographical information provides valuable information on potential mechanisms shaping the climatic regions. Our climate classification has applications in several disciplines, including conservation planning and ecological and evolutionary studies.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

Human activity is altering the world’s zoogeographical regions

Human activity leading to both species introductions and extinctions is widely known to influence diversity patterns on local and regional scales. Yet, it is largely unknown whether the intensity of this activity is enough to affect the configuration of biodiversity at broader levels of spatial organization. Zoogeographical regions, or zooregions, are surfaces of the Earth defined by characteristic pools of species, which reflect ecological, historical, and evolutionary processes acting over millions of years. Consequently, it is widely assumed that zooregions are robust and unlikely to change on a human timescale. Here, however, we show that human-mediated introductions and extinctions can indeed reconfigure the currently recognized zooregions of amphibians, mammals, and birds. In particular, introductions homogenize the African and Eurasian zooregions in mammals; reshape boundaries with the reallocation of Oceania to the New World zooregion in amphibians; and divide bird zooregions by increasing biotic heterogeneity. Furthermore, the combined effect of amphibian introductions and extinctions has the potential to divide two zooregions largely representing the Old and the New World. Interestingly, the robustness of zooregions against changes in species composition may largely explain such zoogeographical changes. Altogether, our results demonstrate that human activities can erode the higher-level organization of biodiversity formed over millions of years. Comparable reconfigurations have previously been detectable in Earths history only after glaciations and mass extinction events, highlighting the profound and far-reaching impact of ongoing human activity and the need to protect the uniqueness of biotic assemblages from the effects of future species introductions and extinctions.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2017

Pleistocene climate change and the formation of regional species pools

This preprint has been reviewed and recommended by Peer Community In Evolutionary Biology (https://doi.org/10.24072/pci.evolbiol.100053). Despite the description of bioregions dates back from the origin of biogeography, the processes originating their associated species pools have been seldom studied. Ancient historical events are thought to play a fundamental role in configuring bioregions, but the effects of more recent events on these regional biotas are largely unknown. We use a network approach to identify regional and sub-regional faunas of European Carabus beetles, and analyse the effects of dispersal barriers, niche similarities and phylogenetic history on their configuration. We identify a transition zone matching the limit of the ice sheets at Last Glacial Maximum. While southern species pools are mostly separated by dispersal barriers, in the north species are mainly sorted by their environmental niches. Strikingly, most phylogenetic structuration of Carabus faunas occurred during the Pleistocene. Our results show how extreme recent historical events -such as Pleistocene climate cooling, rather than just deep-time evolutionary processes, can profoundly modify the composition and structure of geographic species pools.

ecology↗