Biology subjects

Ortiz-Alvarez, R.

Publications and source records attributed to Ortiz-Alvarez, R..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

A tale of two springs: contrasting forest soundscapes during the COVID-19 lockdown (2020) and after the record snowstorm Filomena (2021) from Central Spain

During the COVID-19 pandemic, humanity temporarily retired from the outdoors. The strict lockdown measures in Spain coincided with the onset of the nesting season of birds, thriving in an unusually quiet environment. Here, we have recorded in forests near San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Central Spain) during the lockdown period in 2020, and the closer to normal spring in 2021. We found strong differences in soundscapes by recording year and location, regardless of the effects of meteorology and human mobility. Species altered their behaviour by increasing their calling intensity during 2021 to cope with higher noise levels, however, acoustic activity was generally less diverse and complex. The difference between years was particularly detrimental for the highest-pitched biophony in 2021. We interpret that an extreme snowfall, Filomena, may have caused a mortality event with lasting effects in the community during the 2021 spring. Since extreme climatic events are likely going to keep happening in the area due to climate change, our data is a useful baseline to guide future conservation efforts, and examine how our activity and climate change are changing the soundscapes of Spanish Mediterranean forests.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2022

Ecological assembly of natural soundscapes in the Garajonay National Park (Spain)

Natural sound contains data about the ecology of animal populations, communities, and the full ecosystem, resulting from a complex evolution and varying according to the environment. Amongst the processes that are hypothesized to explain sound assemblages, or soundscapes, one is the acoustic niche hypothesis: sounds produced by species calling at the same time seek avoid overlapping, leading to an acoustic differentiation of signals. Soundscapes are more complex in the most pristine environments and show responses to habitat degradation and physical perturbations; hence here, we focus on La Gomera, in the Canary Islands (Spain). This island is the only location in Europe where primary cloud forests are well preserved and thrive on an island with varied orography, microclimates, disturbances, and vegetation types. In this article, we adapted a method to quantify the importance of acoustic niche partitioning and also the opposite process: acoustic aggregation. To do so, we explored soundscapes at different temporal scales in forests with variable degrees of perturbation and maturity. A secondary goal of this report is to compare how soundscapes could differ in an area affected by a wildfire, and undisturbed equivalents, in summer in winter, seasons with contrasting temperatures and wind regimes. We conclude that tracking faunal activity and behavior through soundscape monitoring could be a piece of useful complementary information to guide conservation decisions and future restoration efforts in the Garajonay National Park (La Gomera). Highlights{circ} The mature forest and the transitional forest are similar in terms of sound levels, frequencies, and dynamics, although the transitional forest had higher sound levels of the lower frequencies (higher NDSI). {circ}The mature forest has stronger and more active assembly mechanisms (i.e., acoustic aggregation and acoustic niche partitioning) and a higher acoustic diversity index (ADI) than the transitional forest. Assembly organizes differently in both locations. {circ}In both the mature and the transitional forests, we found an inverse relationship between the ADI and acoustic niche partitioning. At the highest diversities (more frequency bands occupied), the weakest is the temporal avoidance of calls with similar frequencies. {circ}The vulnerability of the burned location is highest during the harsh summer, but in winter, it hosts a community very similar to the intact vegetation in terms of ADI and sound levels.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Microbial map of the world's vineyards:Applying the concept of microbial terroir on a global scale

The specific microbial biodiversity linked to a particular vineyard location is reported to be a crucial aspect, in conjunction with edaphic, climatic and human factors, in the concept of wine terroir. These biogeographical patterns are known as microbial terroirs. This study applied an HTS amplicon library approach in order to conduct a global survey of vineyards soil microbial communities. In all, soil samples from 200 vineyards on four continents were analysed in an attempt to establish the basis for the development of a vineyard soil microbiome map to represent microbial wine terroirs on a global scale. This study established links between vineyard locations and microbial biodiversity on different scales: between continents and countries, and between different wine regions within the same country. Geography had a strong effect on the composition of microbial communities on a global scale, which was also maintained on a country scale. Furthermore, a predictive model was developed, based on random forest analyses, to discriminate between microbial patterns in order to identify the geographical source of the samples with reasonable precision. Finally this study is the first to describe the microbial community of new and northern wine-producing regions, such as Denmark, that could be of great interest for viticulture adaptation in a context of climate change.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2020

Emergent properties in microbiome networks reveal the anthropogenic disturbance of farming practices in vineyard soil fungal communities

Agro-ecosystems are human-managed natural systems, and therefore are subject to generalized ecological rules. A deeper understanding of the factors impacting on the biotic component of ecosystem stability is needed for promoting the sustainability and productivity of global agriculture. Here we propose a method to determine ecological emergent properties through the inference of network properties in local microbial communities, and to use them as biomarkers of the anthropogenic impact of different farming practices on vineyard soil ecosystem functioning. In a dataset of 350 vineyard soil samples from USA and Spain we observed that fungal communities ranged from random to small-world network arrangements with differential levels of niche specialization. Some of the network properties studied were strongly correlated, defining patterns of ecological emergent properties that are influenced by the intensification level of the crop management. Low-intervention practices (from organic to biodynamic approaches) promoted densely clustered networks, describing an equilibrium state based on mixed (generalist-collaborative) communities. Contrary, in conventionally managed vineyards, we observed highly modular (niche-specialized) low clustered communities, supported by a higher degree of selection (more co-exclusion proportion). We also found that, although geographic factors can explain the different fungal community arrangements in both countries, the relationship between network properties in local fungal communities better capture the impact of farming practices regardless of the location. Thus, we hypothesize that local network properties can be globally used to evaluate the effect of ecosystem disturbances in crops, but also in when evaluating the effect of clinical interventions or to compare microbiomes of healthy vs. disturbed conditions.

ecology↗