Biology subjects

Pedraza, F.

Publications and source records attributed to Pedraza, F..

10 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Quantifying the geographic mosaic of coevolutionary temperature: from coldspots to hotspots

The Geographic Mosaic Theory of Coevolution (GMTC) predicts that reciprocal evolutionary effects vary across landscapes, generating hotspots and coldspots. Traditionally, these states are treated as discrete categories, even though the intensity of coevolutionary selection can vary continuously. To capture this variation, we introduce a concept of coevolutionary temperature, ranging from coldspot to hotspot. We propose two complementary metrics to quantify it: reciprocity and strength of pairwise evolutionary effects. We also extend the GMTC framework beyond its traditional focus on pairwise systems to species-rich communities. Applying this approach to empirical plant-pollinator networks in a fragmented landscape, we find pronounced geographic mosaics in coevolutionary temperature. Smaller habitat patches support small, highly connected, and weakly nested communities with high reciprocity and strength, suggesting that they act as coevolutionary hotspots. In contrast, larger patches host species-rich, poorly connected, and highly nested communities with low reciprocity and strength, consistent with coldspots. At the interaction scale, reciprocity depends on degree similarity, with interactions between species that have similar numbers of partners exhibiting higher reciprocity. Together, these results highlight the strong dependence of coevolutionary effects on spatial variation in community structure and show how extending the geographic mosaic framework to species-rich communities can deepen our understanding of coevolution in complex systems.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Landscape configuration and community structure jointlydetermine the persistence of mutualists under habitat loss

Habitat loss poses a major threat to biodiversity. Its effects on ecological communities depend on the complex interplay between the landscape configuration -- the patterns of connections between habitat patches, community structure -- the patterns of interactions between species, and habitat loss patterns. Despite their individual importance, their joint effect on species persistence remains poorly understood. We explore how these three factors influence the persistence of empirical mutualistic communities. By employing spatially explicit metacommunity models, we find that landscapes with a heterogeneous distribution of connections between habitat patches exhibit high persistence under spatially-uncorrelated habitat loss but are highly vulnerable to spatially-correlated loss, where adjacent habitat patches are destroyed sequentially. Homogeneous landscapes with regularly arranged patches have lower persistence than heterogeneous landscapes but are more resilient to correlated habitat loss. The metacommunity nested structure of species interactions enhances persistence, with varying magnitude depending on landscape configuration and the patterns of habitat loss. These results can guide conservation strategies by identifying landscape and community features that promote species persistence.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

The interplay between executive functions and updating predictive representations

Modifying habits, particularly unwanted behaviors, is often challenging. Cognitive research has focused on understanding the mechanisms underlying habit formation and how habits can be rewired. A key mechanism is statistical learning, the continuous, implicit extraction of probabilistic patterns from the environment, which forms the basis of predictive processing. However, the interplay between executive functions (EF) and the rewiring - or updating - of these probabilistic representations remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, we conducted an experiment consisting of four sessions: 1) Learning Phase - acquisition of probabilistic representations, 2) Rewiring Phase - updating these probabilistic representations, 3) Retrieval Phase - accessing learned representations, and 4) EF assessment, targeting five key aspects: attentional control, inhibition, working memory, flexibility, and verbal fluency. We focused on the relationship between these EF measures and the updating of previously acquired knowledge using an interindividual differences approach. Our results revealed a positive relationship between rewiring and inhibition, suggesting that better inhibitory control may facilitate the adaptive restructuring of probabilistic predictive representations. Conversely, a negative relationship was identified between rewiring and semantic fluency, implying that certain underlying aspects of verbal fluency tasks, such as access to long-term memory representations, may hinder the updating process. We interpret this relationship through the lens of competitive memory network models. Our findings indicate that the rewiring of implicit probabilistic representations is a multifaceted cognitive process requiring both the suppression of proactive interference from prior knowledge through cognitive inhibition and a strong reliance on model-free functioning.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Coevolution increases robustness to extinctions in mutualistic but not antagonistic communities

Co-extinctions may exacerbate the current biodiversity crisis. Yet, we do not understand all the factors that shape the robustness of communities to the loss of species. Here we analyse how coevolution influences the robustness of mutualistic and antagonistic communities. We find that coevolution increases robustness in mutualism but reduces it in antagonism. These differences are due to coevolution altering the density of interactions in communities. The largest changes to robustness occur when coevolutionary selection is strong. Yet, the effect size of coevolution on robustness depends on the size of the community. Our results may broaden the suite of mechanisms affecting the resilience of ecological communities. These insights may inform efforts to reduce the risk of species loss in the face of global change.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Evidence for a competitive relationship between executive functions and statistical learning

The ability of the brain to extract patterns from the environment and predict future events, known as statistical learning, has been proposed to interact in a competitive manner with prefrontal lobe related networks and their characteristic cognitive or executive functions. However, it remains unclear whether these cognitive functions also show competitive relationship with implicit statistical learning across individuals and at the level of latent executive function components. In order to address this currently unknown aspect, we investigated, in two independent experiments (NStudy1 = 186, NStudy2 = 157), the relationship between implicit statistical learning, measured by the Alternating Serial Reaction Time task, and executive functions, measured by multiple neuropsychological tests. In both studies, a modest, but consistent negative correlation between implicit statistical learning and most executive function measures was observed. Factor analysis further revealed that a factor representing the verbal fluency and complex working memory seemed to drive these negative correlations. Thus, an antagonism between implicit statistical learning and executive functions might specifically be mediated by updating component of executive functions or/and long-term memory access.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2021

Effects of habitat destruction on coevolving metacommunities

Habitat destruction is a growing threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services. The ecological consequences of habitat loss and fragmentation involve reductions in species abundance and even the extinction of species and interactions. However, we do not yet understand how habitat loss can alter the coevolutionary trajectories of the remaining species or how coevolution, in turn, affects their response to habitat loss. To investigate this, we develop a spatially explicit model which couples metacommunity and coevolutionary dynamics. We show that, by changing the size, composition and structure of local networks, habitat destruction increases the diversity of coevolutionary outcomes across the landscape. Furthermore, we show that while coevolution dampens the negative effects of habitat destruction in mutualistic networks, its effects on the persistence of antagonistic communities are less predictable.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

The role of indirect effects in coevolution as mutualism transitions into antagonism

Species interactions have evolved from antagonistic to mutualistic and back several times throughout lifes history. Yet, it is unclear how changes in the type of interaction between species alter the coevolutionary dynamics of entire communities. This is a pressing matter, as transitions from mutualisms to antagonisms may be becoming more common with human-induced global change. Here, we combine network and evolutionary theory to simulate how shifts in interaction types alter the coevolution of empirical communities. We show that as mutualistic networks shift to antagonistic, selection imposed by direct partners begins to outweigh that imposed by indirect partners. This weakening of indirect effects is associated with communities losing their tight integration of traits and increasing their rate of adaptation. The above changes are more pronounced when specialist consumers are the first species to switch to antagonism. A shift in the outcome of species interactions may therefore reverberate across communities and alter the direction and speed of coevolution.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2021

The joint role of coevolutionary selection and network structure in shaping trait complementarity in mutualisms.

Coevolution can sculpt remarkable trait similarity between mutualistic partners. Yet, it remains unclear which network topologies and selection regimes enhance such trait complementarity. To address this, we simulate coevolution in topologically-distinct net-works under a gradient of mutualistic selection strength. We describe three main insights. First, trait matching is jointly influenced by the strength of mutualistic selection and the structural properties of the network where coevolution is unfolding. Second, the strength of mutualistic selection determines the network descriptors better correlated with higher trait matching. When coevolution is weak, network modularity enhances trait matching, but when it is strong, network connectance amplifies trait matching. Third, the structural properties of networks outrank those of modules or species in determining the evolved degree of trait matching. Our findings suggest networks can both enhance or constrain trait complementary, depending on the strength of mutualistic selection.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Determining which mechanisms underlie facilitation by tussocks in tropical high mountains and their relative importance

Facilitation by tussocks is common in high-altitude tropical environments. It is thought that facilitation results from stress amelioration, but it is unclear which of the many stressors acting in these environments is ameliorated. We aimed at determining the relative importance of different stressors as drivers of facilitation by the tussock Festuca tolucensis in Mexico. We manipulated five stressors in the field: minimum temperatures by using electric radiators that kept plants warm; maximum temperatures by means of reflective sand that precluded temperature build-up during the day; UV radiation by using screens opaque to UV; poor soil properties by comparing soils from beneath tussocks and from bare ground; and low water availability by adding vermiculite to the soil. The performance (survival and growth) of Mexerion sarmentosum (a plant usually associated with Festuca) in these treatments was compared to that recorded under tussocks and in bare ground. Amelioration of extreme temperatures had the largest positive effects on Mexerion survival. UV radiation and increased soil humidity did not affect survival, although humidity increased growth rates. Nevertheless, tussocks reduced the growth of Mexerion, which is consistent with observations of competition between plants and soil microorganisms favoured by tussocks. Our results highlight the importance of the extreme daily fluctuations in temperature that characterise tropical mountains as fundamental drivers of their dynamics.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Retrieval of a well-established skill is resistant to distraction: evidence from an implicit probabilistic sequence learning task

The characteristics of acquiring new sequence information under dual-task situations have been extensively studied so far. Such a concurrent task has often been found to affect performance. In real life, however, we mostly perform a secondary task when the primary one is already well-acquired. The effect of a secondary task on the ability to retrieve well-established sequence representations remains elusive. The present study investigates whether accessing a well-acquired probabilistic sequence knowledge is affected by a concurrent task. Participants acquired non-adjacent regularities in a perceptual-motor implicit probabilistic sequence learning task. After a 24-hour offline period, participants were tested on the same sequence learning task under dual-task or single-task conditions. Here we show that although the secondary task significantly prolonged the overall reaction times in the primary task, the access to the previously learned probabilistic representations remained intact. Our results highlight the importance of studying the dual-task effect not only in the learning phase but also during memory access.

neuroscience↗