Languages Are Still a Major Barrier to Global Science

While it is recognized that language can pose a barrier to the transfer of scientific knowledge, the convergence on English as the global language of science may suggest that this problem has been resolved. However, our survey searching Google Scholar in 16 languages revealed that 35.6% of 75,513 scientific documents on biodiversity conservation published in 2014 were not in English. Ignoring such non-English knowledge can cause biases in our understanding of study systems. Furthermore, as publication in English has become prevalent, scientific knowledge is often unavailable in local languages. This hinders its use by field practitioners and policy makers for local environmental issues; 54% of protected area directors in Spain identified languages as a barrier. We urge scientific communities to make a more concerted effort to tackle this problem and propose potential approaches both for compiling non-English scientific knowledge effectively and for enhancing the multilingualization of new and existing knowledge available only in English for the users of such knowledge.European Commission’s Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship Programme (grant number PIIF-GA-2011-303221). Received by TA. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. European Commission's Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (grant number H2020-MSCA-IF-2014- 656572). Received by JPGV. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Isaac Newton Trust (grant number 15.23(s))

La biotecnología en el entorno social y educativo

El presente trabajo se ajusta a la asignatura de Cultura Científica de 1º de Bachillerato. Se centra en poner de manifiesto la importancia de la biotecnología a través de las plantas transgénicas y sus aplicaciones en la sociedad. En primer lugar, se analizan los saberes previos de los alumnos, así como la formación que han recibido en el aula y el nivel de motivación acerca de la biotecnología en general y, en particular de las plantas transgénicas, para posteriormente plantear una propuesta innovadora y motivadora fundamentada en la legislación vigente que siga el hilo de las opiniones, intereses y necesidades de los educandos. La propuesta didáctica pretende dar a conocer diversos aspectos sobre las plantas transgénicas, entre ellos, cómo se obtienen las mismas. Además, se lleva a cabo una actividad complementaria en la asignatura de Biología y Geología que ayudará a la mejor comprensión de la propuesta.Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular y FisiologíaMáster en Profesor de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y Bachillerato, Formación Profesional y Enseñanzas de Idioma

Seed dispersers help plants to escape global warming

Plants are shifting their ranges towards higher elevations in response to global warming, yet such shifts are occurring at a rate slower than is needed to keep pace with a rapidly changing climate. There is, however, an almost complete lack of knowledge on seed dispersal across altitude, a key process to understand what constrains climate-driven range shifts. Here, we report the first direct empirical evidence on altitudinal seed dispersal mediated by two common frugivorous mammals: the red fox Vulpes vulpes and the pine marten Martes martes. We conducted a three-year (bait-marking) experiment in a mountainous region of Spain. We offered experimental fruits containing colour-coded seed mimics at feeding stations that simulated source trees. The colour codes allowed us to identify the exact origin of seed mimics found later in mammal scats. Nearly half (47%) of the dispersal events occurred towards higher elevations, despite only ca 25% of the study area being above the average altitude of the feeding stations (1344 m). Seeds dispersed uphill gained an average of 106 m (median = 111 m) and a maximum of 288 m, greatly exceeding the estimated requirements to escape warming (35.4 m per decade). Yet, foxes mediated much more uphill seed dispersal than martens (57% and 26% of dispersal events, respectively), which can be explained by between-disperser differences in home range size and habitat specificity. Dispersers with larger home ranges move farther and potentially disperse more seeds to higher altitudes, while habitat generalism is necessary to transport seeds above vegetation belts delimiting contrasting habitat types. We discuss how both traits (home range size and habitat specificity) can be used to infer altitudinal seed dispersal across disperser species and mountainous landscapes.This study was funded by the Galician Regional Government (project PGIDIT 05RFO 20001 PR). JPGV 310 was supported by an Individual Fellowship from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (H2020-MSCA-IF-2014-656572: MOBILELINKS). JVLB was supported by a ‘Juan de la 312 Cierva’ research contract (JCI-2012-13066) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness

Frugivory and spatial patterns of seed deposition by carnivorous mammals in anthropogenic landscapes: A multi-scale approach

Background: Knowledge about how frugivory and seed deposition are spatially distributed is valuable to understand the role of dispersers on the structure and dynamics of plant populations. This may be particularly important within anthropogenic areas, where either the patchy distribution of wild plants or the presence of cultivated fleshy-fruits may influence plant-disperser interactions. Methodology/Principal Findings: We investigated frugivory and spatial patterns of seed deposition by carnivorous mammals in anthropogenic landscapes considering two spatial scales: 'landscape' (~10 km2) and 'habitat type' (~1-2 km2). We sampled carnivore faeces and plant abundance at three contrasting habitats (chestnut woods, mosaics and scrublands), each replicated within three different landscapes. Sixty-five percent of faeces collected (n = 1077) contained seeds, among which wild and cultivated seeds appeared in similar proportions (58% and 53%) despite that cultivated fruiting plants were much less abundant. Seed deposition was spatially structured among both spatial scales being different between fruit types. Whereas the most important source of spatial variation in deposition of wild seeds was the landscape scale, it was the habitat scale for cultivated seeds. At the habitat scale, seeds of wild species were mostly deposited within mosaics while seeds of cultivated species were within chestnut woods and scrublands. Spatial concordance between seed deposition and plant abundance was found only for wild species. Conclusions/Significance: Spatial patterns of seed deposition by carnivores differed between fruit types and seemed to be modulated by the fleshy-fruited plant assemblages and the behaviour of dispersers. Our results suggest that a strong preference for cultivated fruits by carnivores may influence their spatial foraging behaviour and lower their dispersal services to wild species. However, the high amount of seeds removed within and between habitats suggests that carnivores must play an important role - often overlooked - as 'restorers' and 'habitat shapers' in anthropogenic areas.Conselleria de Educacion Xunta de Galicia PGIDIT 05RFO 20001 P

Business Internationalization Through the Gender Glasses

This paper aims to offer a diagnosis of exporting companies with an interest in the international market from a gender perspective. To this end, we show descriptive evidence using data from Spain gathered by ICEX. The application of advanced data analysis techniques allows us to explore the characteristics of companies with an interest in internationalization from a gender perspective, whether there are differences both in the use of ICEX support services and in the target markets for this support in the case of woman-led or female-owned companies, and whether there are differences in export pathways from the year 2000 onwards

Interspecific competition for frugivores: population-level seed dispersal in contrasting fruiting communities

Indirect interactions among plant species mediated by frugivorous animals can be central to population and community dynamics, since the successful seed dispersal of species may depend on facilitative or competitive interactions with heterospecific plants. Yet, empirical evidence on these interactions is very scarce and mostly available at small spatial scales, within populations. Because lipid-rich fruits are known to be preferred by migratory birds, here we test our prediction of competitive inferiority of a carbohydrate-rich fruited species (the hawthorn Crataegus monogyna) compared to lipid-rich co-fruiting species in a Mediterranean region where the bulk of seed dispersal relies on migratory birds. We assessed avian seed dispersal in both relative (fruit removal rate) and absolute terms (seed dispersal magnitude) in seven hawthorn populations distributed across an altitudinal gradient encompassing three contrasting fruiting contexts: hawthorn is scarce in the lowlands, common in the midlands, and the dominant fruit species in the highlands. We found evidence of seed dispersal reduction due to interspecific competition in the lowland populations, where lipid-rich fruits dominate. Besides, DNA-barcoding analysis of bird-dispersed seeds revealed that only a small subset of the local frugivore assemblages consumed hawthorn fruits in the lowland communities. Instead, the consumers of hawthorn fruits resembled the local frugivore assemblages where hawthorn fruits were more dominant and frugivore choices more limited. Our study suggests mechanisms by which the rarity or dominance of plant species might be jointly influenced by environmental constraints (here, precipitation along the altitudinal gradient) and frugivore-mediated indirect interactions among plants hindering or facilitating seed dispersal

The Labile Limits of Forbidden Interactions

Forbidden links are defined as pairwise interactions that are prevented by the biological traits of the species. We focus here on the neglected importance of intraspecific trait variation in the forbidden link concept. We show how intraspecific trait variability at different spatiotemporal scales, and through ontogeny, reduces the expected prevalence of forbidden interactions. We also highlight how behavior can foster interactions that, from traits, would be predicted to be forbidden. We therefore discuss the drawbacks of frameworks recently developed to infer biotic interactions using available trait data (mean values). Mispredictions can have disproportionate effects on inferences about community dynamics. Thus, we suggest including intraspecific variability in trait-based models and using them to guide the sampling of real interactions in the field for validation

On-shell equivalence of general relativity and Holst theories with nonmetricity, torsion, and boundaries

We study a generalization of the Holst action where we admit nonmetricity and torsion in manifolds with timelike boundaries (both in the metric and tetrad formalism). We prove that its space of solutions is equal to the one of the Palatini action. Therefore, we conclude that the metric sector is in fact identical to general relativity (GR), which is defined by the Einstein-Hilbert action. We further prove that, despite defining the same space of solutions, the Palatini and (the generalized) Holst Lagrangians are not cohomologically equal. Thus, the presymplectic structure and charges provided by the covariant phase space method might differ. However, using the relative bicomplex framework, we show the covariant phase spaces of both theories are equivalent (and in fact equivalent to GR), as well as their charges, clarifying some open problems regarding dual charges and their equivalence in different formulations.This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia Innovación y Universidades-Agencia Estatal de Investigación FIS2017-84440-C2-2-P and PID2020-116567GB-C22 grants. Juan Margalef-Bentabol is supported by the AARMS postdoctoral fellowship, by the NSERC Discovery Grant No. 2018-04873, and the NSERC Grant RGPIN-2018-04887. E.J.S. Villaseñor is supported by the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid-Spain) under the Multiannual Agreement with UC3M in the line of Excellence of University Professors (EPUC3M23), and in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation)

Fruit abundance and trait matching determine diet type and body condition across frugivorous bird populations

Research on seed‐dispersal mutualisms has been highly unbalanced towards the plants, largely overlooking the fitness effects of fruit resources on frugivorous animals. Moreover, despite morphological mismatches like gape limitation may reduce the abundance of fruits that are actually accessible to a frugivore species, there is very little evidence on the trait‐matching implications from a frugivore's perspective. Here, we refine recent resource‐provisioning models to comprehensively test the joint effects of fruit abundance and trait matching on diet type and body condition (a surrogate of fitness) across frugivorous bird populations: Sardinian warblers Curruca melanocephala inhabiting ten Mediterranean forests differing in the abundance and composition of fleshy fruits. We hypothesised the abundance of fruit resources to have positive effects on the degree of frugivory and body condition of warblers, and such effects to be more pronounced when accounting for both trait matching (accessible fruits) and resource provisioning (energy in accessible fruits). We found a sharp threshold over which warblers shifted from a diet with very little or even no fruits to a predominantly frugivorous diet with increasing the local abundance of accessible fruits. We also found a strong positive relationship between the abundance of accessible fruits and the body condition of warblers (body mass and residual body mass), an effect that was more pronounced in females than in males. Although diet type and body condition were much better predicted when accounting for trait matching, accounting for resource provisioning did not improve the explanatory power of fruit resources. The fact that we detected strong and sex‐dependent effects of fruit resources on body condition just a few weeks before the breeding season suggests that fruit resources likely affect the timing and success of reproduction, a question that deserves further research. Our findings provide new insight into the fitness consequences of seed‐dispersal mutualisms for frugivorous animals.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Frugivoría y dispersión de semillas por mamíferos carnívoros: rasgos funcionales

Muchas especies de mamíferos carnívoros (Orden Carnivora) consumen frutos carnosos, transportan semillas en sus tractos digestivos y las defecan sin dañarlas en condiciones apropiadas para la germinación. En este artículo, revisamos el conocimiento adquirido sobre este mutualismo en las últimas tres décadas, desde que tres trabajos pioneros revelaron la importancia de los carnívoros como dispersores de semillas en ecosistemas templados. Nos centramos en los rasgos funcionales de los carnívoros consumiendo frutos y diseminando semillas, haciendo especial énfasis en sus diferencias con las aves, el principal grupo de vertebrados frugívoros en ecosistemas templados. Los carnívoros no están sujetos a las restricciones fenológicas o morfológicas que típicamente limitan el consumo de determinados frutos en muchas especies de aves. Consumen preferentemente frutos cuyos atributos son compartidos con muchas especies de frutos cultivados por el hombre, lo que explica el consumo frecuente de éstos en paisajes antrópicos. Sus amplios requerimientos espaciales favorecen la dispersión de semillas a larga distancia, mientras que su generalismo en relación al hábitat favorece el flujo de semillas entre hábitats contrastados. De este modo, los carnívoros promueven la conectividad entre poblaciones vegetales y la colonización. Estas funciones ecológicas son clave para las comunidades vegetales nativas, especialmente en escenarios de cambios de uso de suelo. Sin embargo, estos patrones de dispersión de semillas pueden contribuir a la invasión de plantas exóticas. Aún ignoramos en gran medida el papel de los carnívoros en términos cuantitativos de la dispersión de semillas y las diferencias funcionales entre especies dentro del gremio. La integración de muestreos clásicos e innovadoras técnicas moleculares y de análisis espacial promete aportar conocimiento inédito en estas cuestiones[EN ] Many species of carnivorous mammals (Order Carnivora) consume fleshy fruits, transport seeds in their digestive tracts, and defecate them without damage in conditions that are suitable for germination. In this article, we review the state of the art on this mutualism in the past three decades, since three pioneering studies revealed the importance of carnivores as seed dispersers in temperate ecosystems. We focus on the functional traits of carnivores consuming fruits and disseminating seeds, with particular emphasis on their differences with birds, the main group of vertebrate frugivores in temperate ecosystems. Carnivores are not subject to the phenological or morphological constraints that typically limit the consumption of certain fruit species in many bird species. They preferably consume fruits whose traits are shared with many fruit species cultivated by man, which explains the frequent consumption of cultivated fruits in anthropogenic landscapes. The large spatial requirements of carnivores promote long-distance seed dispersal, while their habitat generalism promotes seed flows between contrasting habitats. Thus, carnivores promote connectivity between plant populations and colonization. These are key ecological functions for native plant communities, especially in scenarios of land-use changes. However, these seed dispersal patterns can contribute to the invasion of exotic plants. We still largely ignore the role of carnivores in quantitative terms of seed dispersal and the functional differences between species within the guild. Integrating traditional fieldwork and innovative molecular techniques and spatial analysis promises to provide unprecedented knowledge on these issuesPeer reviewe