papers

Info about published papers

Within-individual phenotypic plasticity in flowers fosters pollination niche shift

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Within-individual phenotypic plasticity in flowers fosters pollination niche shift

Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of a genotype to produce different phenotypes in response to changes in the environment. This is an essential property of living beings but its role in adaptation and acclimatization to environmental changes is not yet fully known.

As part of a truly multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Granada, the Experimental Station of Arid Zones (CSIC) and the Universities of Vigo, Pablo Olavide and Rey Juan Carlos, we have just published an article in the top-ranking journal Nature Communications demonstrating experimentally, both in natural conditions and in the laboratory, the phenotypic plasticity of the flowers of a plant species living in semi-arid environments.

In spring, this species – the crucifer Moricandia arvensis – produces large, lilac-colored, UV-reflecting flowers in the shape of a cross. These flowers attract mainly large, long-tongued bees as pollinators. However, unlike most coexisting species, M. arvensis maintains flowering during the dry, hot summer of the western Mediterranean. This is due to its plasticity in key vegetative traits, including photosynthetic traits, that adjust its metabolism to these extreme temperatures and water deficit conditions. The summer’s high temperatures and longer light hours trigger changes in the expression of more than 625 genes in the flower that lead to these plants to produce different radical flowers. Whereas in spring flowers were large and cross-shaped, in summer they are small and rounded; whereas they were lilac and reflected UV, in summer they are white and absorb UV. These summer flowers attract a different set of pollinators composed of more generalist species. This change in the pollinator set (the pollination niche) allows this plant to reproduce successfully under the challenging summer conditions. Phenotypic plasticity for flower, vegetative, and photosynthetic traits seems to allow M. arvensis to cope with anthropogenic disturbances and climate change.

Gómez JM, Perfectti F, Armas C, Narbona E, González-Megías A, Navarro L, DeSoto L, Torices R (2020).
Within-individual phenotypic plasticity in flowers fosters pollination niche shift.
Nature Communications 11:4019
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17875-1

 

 

Within-individual phenotypic plasticity in flowers fosters pollination niche shift

 

 

Promoting Individual and Collective Creativity in Science Students

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Promoting Individual and Collective Creativity in Science Students

Junto con la Prof. Isabel Reche acabamos de publicar en una de las mejores revistas de Ecología y Evolución (Trends in Ecology and Evolution) un artículo sobre la necesidad de desarrollar el pensamiento creativo en los estudiantes de ciencias. 

Reche I, Perfectti F. 2020.
Promoting individual and collective creativity in science students
Trends in Ecology and Evolution 35: 745-748
DOI

 

Un pilar básico de la ciencia es el método científico. Otro, la creatividad. Sin embargo, esta última es una parte de la actividad científica usualmente relegada a un segundo plano, y eso a pesar de que la creatividad es un mecanismo cognitivo evolucionado para la abstracción, la síntesis y la resolución de problemas no recurrentes, habilidades que todos los investigadores reconocen como cruciales para poder desarrollar una exitosa carrera científica.           

En esta publicación explicamos como recientes investigaciones han mostrado que la creatividad se puede cultivar manteniendo una mentalidad de crecimiento (¨growth mindset¨) que nos haga aprovechar no solo las diferentes oportunidades sino también los problemas y dificultades que debemos afrontar durante una carrera científica. Considerar los problemas científicos desde diferentes perspectivas haciendo uso del pensamiento lateral y asociativo puede también incrementar la creatividad científica. Igualmente, es importante estar abierto a nuevas oportunidades, ser curioso e inquisitivo y no ignorar los resultados inesperados o incongruentes, pues pueden contribuir a obtener avances científicos por serendipia.

La última parte del artículo se la dedicamos a analizar el papel de la inteligencia y la creatividad colectiva, puesto que actualmente la mayor parte de la ciencia es realizada por grupos de colaboradores de diversos tamaños. Recientes investigaciones han demostrado que los grupos diversos y sin una jerarquía muy intensa presentan mayor inteligencia y creatividad colectiva, lo que redunda en publicaciones científicas que reciben más citas y tienen un mayor impacto.

Esta publicación es un producto del curso  “Creatividad, Rigor y Comunicación en Ciencia” que impartimos conjuntamente en el Máster Genética y Evolución.


https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2020.06.002

 

Promoting Individual and Collective Creativity in Science Students

 

 

Independent evolution of ancestral and novel defenses in a genus of toxic plants (Erysimum, Brassicaceae)

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Independent evolution of ancestral and novel defenses in a genus of toxic plants (Erysimum, Brassicaceae)

In collaboration with a international team led by Tobias Züst (Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland) we have published in ELife a paper on the evolution of biochemical defences in Erysimum. In this paper we present the genome assembly of E. cheiranthoides, an important resource to study Erysimum.

Züst T, Strickler SR, Powell AF, Mabry ME, An H, Mirzaei M, York T, Holland CK, Kumar P, Erb M, Petschenka G, Goméz JM, Perfectti F, Müller C, Pires JC, Mueller LA, Jander G. 2020.
Independent evolution of ancestral and novel defenses in a genus of toxic plants (Erysimum, Brassicaceae)
eLife 9:e51712
DOI

Phytochemical diversity is thought to result from coevolutionary cycles as specialization in herbivores imposes diversifying selection on plant chemical defenses. Plants in the speciose genus Erysimum (Brassicaceae) produce both ancestral glucosinolates and evolutionarily novel cardenolides as defenses. Here we test macroevolutionary hypotheses on co-expression, co-regulation, and diversification of these potentially redundant defenses across this genus. We sequenced and assembled the genome of E. cheiranthoides and foliar transcriptomes of 47 additional Erysimum species to construct a phylogeny from 9868 orthologous genes, revealing several geographic clades but also high levels of gene discordance. Concentrations, inducibility, and diversity of the two defenses varied independently among species, with no evidence for trade-offs. Closely related, geographically co-occurring species shared similar cardenolide traits, but not glucosinolate traits, likely as a result of specific selective pressures acting on each defense. Ancestral and novel chemical defenses in Erysimum thus appear to provide complementary rather than redundant functions.

Pollination effectiveness in a generalist plant: adding the genetic component

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Pollination effectiveness in a generalist plant: adding the genetic component

We have published in New Phytologist an analysis of the pollination effectiveness in Erysimum mediohispanicum. In this paper, led by Javier Valverde, we show that including the genetic component in the calculation of pollination effectiveness may allow a more complete quantification of each pollinator’s contribution to the reproductive success of a plant providing information on its mating patterns and long‐term fitness.

The pollination effectiveness of a flower visitor has traditionally been measured as the product of a quantity component that depends on the frequency of interaction and a quality component that measures the per‐visit effects on plant reproduction. We propose that this could be complemented with a genetic component informing about each pollinator’s contribution to the genetic diversity and composition of the plant progeny.

We measured the quantity and quality components of effectiveness of most pollinator functional groups of the generalist herb Erysimum mediohispanicum . We used 10 microsatellite markers to calculate the genetic component as the diversity of sires among siblings and included it into the calculation of the pollination effectiveness.
Functional groups varied in the quantity and quality components, which were shown to be decoupled. Functional groups also differed in the genetic component. This component changed the estimates of pollination effectiveness, increasing the differences between some functional groups and modifying the pollination effectiveness landscape.

Valverde J, Perfectti F, Gómez JM. 2019.
Pollination effectiveness in a generalist plant: adding the genetic component.
New Phytologist 223: 354–365 
DOI

Anther rubbing en Canal Sur

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Anther rubbing en Canal Sur

Nuestra investigación sobre el movimiento de los estambres en Erysimum incanum, publicada en la revista The American Naturalist, está teniendo gran repercusión en los medios. De hecho está clasificado como en el 5% superior de todas las investigaciones analizadas por Altmetric.

Abdelaziz M, Bakkali M, Gómez JM, Olivieri E, Perfectti F.
Anther rubbing, a new mechanism that actively promotes selfing in plants.
The American Naturalist 193: 140 – 147
DOI    

El programa ConCiencia de Canal Sur también se ha interesado y ha realizado un reportaje sobre nuestro trabajo. Pulse sobre la imagen para visualizarlo:

El clip de video también se puede ver en este enlace.

Además, periódicos como El País, Ideal, La Vanguardia, El Confidencial, 20 minutos y un largo etcétera se han hecho eco de esta publicación, así como revistas científicas de la importancia de Science.

Molecular phylogeny and evolutionary history of Moricandia DC (Brassicaceae)

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Molecular phylogeny and evolutionary history of Moricandia DC (Brassicaceae)

We present in this paper a molecular phylogeny of the genus Moricandia (Brassicaceae). We have found that a Spanish population previously ascribed to Rytidocarpus moricandioides is indeed a Moricandia species, and we propose to name it as M. rytidocarpoides sp. nov. In addition, M. foleyi appeared outside the Moricandia lineage but within the genus Eruca. Therefore, M. foleyi should be excluded from the genus Moricandia and be ascribed to the genus Eruca. Read more