Martínez-Borda, Estefanía. University of Seville. Supervisors: Juan Arroyo Marín & Marcial Escudero. Start in October 2016.
Summary:
The mat-grass grassland is an important community type in
the high mountains in the Paleartic region, and some of them are within
hotspots of diversity in Europe and the Mediterranean basin. This
community is dominated by grasses and other herbs, especially by
Nardus stricta, the distribution restricted of these communities on
the biogeographic gradient, represents a good example that evaluates on
the possible correlation between mat-grass grassland assemblages and
latitudinal and altitudinal boundaries. This future composition may give
it a potential as a monitor of the effects on a particular global change
scenario. The general hypothesis to be tested in our project is that
climate change decreases environmental optimality which may lead to loss
of genetic diversity, diversity of linages and functional diversity in
the extremes of the Mediterranean climate gradient, both in the north
and the south limits. In this project we aim to evaluate the effect on
both functional and phylogenetic biodiversity of these communities from
the Pyrenees to High Atlas in an altitudinal range of 1700-3000 m.a.s.l
in relation to the environmental conditions and the geomorphological
history. It will allow to determine the functional sensibility to the
stress, to establish the variation of ecological and evolutionary
components of biodiversity, to know the historical reasons in the
structure of the community and its diversity in order to predict
probable future consequences in a scenario of the global change.