Biology subjects

Lanuza, J. B.

Publications and source records attributed to Lanuza, J. B..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Water-related leaf traits associated with epiphytism in the Neotropical megadiverse genus Anthurium (Araceae)

Background and Aims Epiphytes comprise approximately 10% of global vascular plant diversity and play key roles in many tropical ecosystems. They possess traits allowing survival under limited water availability (i.e. the epiphytic trait syndrome), but knowledge of these trait combinations is taxonomically biased and their generality remains unclear. The megadiverse genus Anthurium (Araceae), with ~600 epiphytic species, offers an opportunity to address this gap by examining patterns of leaf trait covariation, their phylogenetic context, and differences among life forms. Methods A common garden experiment was conducted using 40 species from 13 sections spanning a gradient of epiphytic incidence. Twenty-one anatomical, morphological, and physiological leaf traits were quantified. Patterns of trait variation were assessed, and associations between leaf traits and epiphytism were evaluated both with and without accounting for phylogenetic relationships. Key Results Leaf trait variation was captured by two principal components. The first axis was negatively associated with stomatal density and size, leaf thickness, and leaf water content, while the second axis described a trade-off between leaf mass per area (LMA) and water loss rate. Epiphytic species generally exhibited smaller, more numerous stomata and higher LMA, consistent with adaptations for water retention. Epiphytism showed a phylogenetic signal; however, trait covariation patterns were not influenced by phylogenetic relatedness. Conclusions We found consistent associations between epiphytism and several water-related leaf traits in Anthurium, but some of these associations departed from general expectations of an epiphytic trait syndrome. Water-related traits showed variable phylogenetic signal and reflected multiple functional strategies for coping with intermittent water supply. These findings highlight the diversity of functional strategies underlying epiphytism and expand current understanding beyond well-studied taxa.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2022

The non-random assembly of functional motifs in plant-pollinator networks

Ecological processes leave distinct structural imprints on the species interactions that shape the topology of mutualistic networks. Detecting those relationships is not trivial since they go beyond pairwise interactions, but may get blurred when considering full network descriptors. Recent work has shown that the network meso-scale can capture this important information. The meso-scale describes network subgraphs representing patterns of interactions between a small number of species (i.e., motifs) that constitute the building blocks of the whole network. Despite the possible implications of network motifs to better capture species interactions, they remain overlooked in natural plant-pollinator networks. By exploring 60 empirical plant-pollinator networks from 18 different studies with wide geographical coverage we show that some motifs are consistently under- or over-represented worldwide, suggesting that the building blocks of plant-pollinator networks are not random. Furthermore, we find that distinct motif positions describing species ecological roles (e.g., generalisation and number of indirect interactions) are occupied by different plant and floral visitor groups on both trophic levels. Bees appear less frequently in specialised motif positions with high number of indirect interactions, while the rest of floral visitor groups are infrequent in generalised motif positions with low number of indirect interactions. All plant groups tend to be over-represented on specialised motif positions, except tall plant species with separated sexes (e.g., woody dioecious or monoecious species), which are more frequent on motif positions with low number of indirect interactions. Interestingly, the realized combinations of different species groups within a motif can not be retrieved from their joint probability distributions, indicating that group combinations are not random either. Our result highlights the non-random structure of the meso-scale on plant-pollinators networks and the association of different plant and floral visitor groups with certain motifs that involve different ecological roles at a macro-ecological scale.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

Trade-offs among plant reproductive traits determine interactions with floral visitors

Plant life-history strategies are constrained by cost-benefit trade-offs that determine plant form and function. However, despite recent advances in the understanding of trade-offs for vegetative and physiological traits, little is known about plant reproductive economics and how they constrain plant life-history strategies and shape interactions with floral visitors. Here, we investigate plant reproductive trade-offs and how these drive interactions with floral visitors using a dataset of 17 reproductive traits for 1,506 plant species from 28 plant-pollinator studies across 18 countries. We tested whether a plants reproductive strategy predicts its interactions with floral visitors and if the different reproductive traits predict the plants role within the pollination network. We found that over half of all plant reproductive trait variation was explained by two independent axes that encompassed plant form and function. Specifically, the first axis indicated the presence of a trade-off between flower number and flower size, while the second axis indicated a pollinator dependency trade-off. Plant reproductive trade-offs helped explain partly the presence or absence of interactions with floral visitors, but not differences in visitation rate. However, we did find important differences in the interaction level among floral visitor guilds on the different axes of trait variation. Finally, we found that plant size and floral rewards were the most important traits in the understanding of the plant species network role. Our results highlight the importance of plant reproductive trade-offs in determining plant life-history strategies and plant-pollinator interactions in a global context.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2017

Opposing effects of floral visitors and soil conditions on the determinants of competitive outcomes maintain species diversity in heterogeneous landscapes

Theory argues that both soil conditions and aboveground trophic interactions are equally important for determining plant species diversity. However, it remains unexplored how they modify the niche differences that stabilise species coexistence and the average fitness differences driving competitive dominance. We conducted a field study in Mediterranean annual grasslands to parameterise population models of six competing plant species. Spatially explicit floral visitor assemblages and soil salinity variation were characterized for each species. Both floral visitors and soil salinity modified species population dynamics via direct changes in seed production and indirect changes in competitive responses. Although the magnitude and sign of these changes were species specific, floral visitors promoted coexistence at neighbourhood scales while soil salinity did so over larger scales by changing the superior competitor's identity. Our results show how below and aboveground interactions maintain diversity in heterogeneous landscapes through their opposing effects on the determinants of competitive outcomes.

ecology↗