State of art of ECOFUMER
The Iberian Peninsula comprises about 20% of the surface area of the Mediterranean region, being one of the largest boundaries between Mediterranean and Eurosiberian vegetation (known as sub-Mediterranean zone). This contact zone between the Mediterranean and Eurosiberian regions is characterized by a gradual change of vegetation. There exists an intermediate band where plant communities from both regions co-occur. This is possible because mountainous regions in the Iberian Peninsula provided suitable habitats for many plant species from central Europe after post-glacial recolonization. These sub-Mediterranean zones currently constitute the low-latitude margins of the distribution ranges of numerous central European species, being one of the most diverse regions of the planet, but unfortunately these areas have also been identified as one of the most exposed regions to future climate change projections. The main aim of the project ECOFUMER is to distinguish processes that drive community assembly and ecosystem functions in one of the most important 'biodiversity hotspots' of Europe and to develop mechanistic models to forecast community responses to future scenarios.
One of this sub-Mediterranean ecosystem is the Hayedo de Montejo. Hayedo de Montejo is an emblematic forest situated in the north of Madrid, between the boundaries of Guadalajara and Segovia providences. It's a singular space that was already included in the world heritage list of the UNESCO since 2017, being the most meridional Beech Forest of Europe.
The field work and sampling design
Last June Sergio de Tomas Marín (BTU-PhD student), Diego Prieto Melo (BTU Lab assistant) and me travelled to Montejo to start with the field work of ECOFUMER´s project. To carry out our experimental design we used the previous knowledge of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). The UPM´s team has developed a forest inventory in Montejo with 125 permanent forest plots since 1995.
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To understand the sampling design is important to know that a key aspect of this project is to clarify how and why different types of forest cohabit in the same area. To this end, we firstly split off the inventory accordingly with the dominant woody species, and thus, we obtained six different study areas: Mediterranean oak area (dominated by Quercus pyrenaica), Beech area (dominated by Fagus sylvatica), Eurosiberian oak area (dominated by Quercus petraea), the shrubland area (dominated by Juniperus communis and Adenocarpus hispanicus) and two transition areas (Pyrenaica-Fagus and Pyrenaica-Petraea).
In each of these areas we selected ten plots from the forest inventory where we measured the abundance of the woody plants for each plot. Why was measured the abundance if we have the data from the forest inventory? Traditionally the forest inventories were developed by forest engineers with a management and economy perspective, being the shrubs and arborescent-shrubs communities overlook in these inventories. However, from ECOFUMER´s approach, the contribution of the understory is essential to understand the community assembly rules and functioning of these ecosystems.
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In each of these selected areas we chose five individuals per specie and we measured their functional traits. The functional traits are characteristics that allow species to establish and survive in certain ecosystem. That is, we take samples of roots, leaves and stems which give us information about how the species use the resources (nutrient and water), the resistance to environmental stress or the competition with the other species.
Another important issue is that the same species appears in different areas, so what can we do with these species? In this case, we measured the traits of the specie in each area separately, as if they were “different species”. The plants are able to modify their attributes accordingly with the environmental circumstances, known as intraspecific variability, so if we assume that each type of forest (each study area) is determined by different environmental conditions, we could assume also that it could be affected the intraspecific variability of each specie.
For each plot we know nutrient content, soil deep, orientation and slope. The next steps is to analyse how these environmental factors determine the attributes (traits) at both species and community level, which should let us a better understanding about the forest types distribution within Montejo.
I would like to thank to Violeta Quiroga Álvarez, Anna Tico Pifarre and Francisco Javier Muñoz Gálvez for help during field sampling and trait measurements, to Guillermo Gonzalez for help us with the forest inventory and all research team for the support in the sampling design (Dr. Ivan Prieto, Dr. Jesús Rodríguez-Calcerrada and Prof. Francisco Lloret)