SIVIM Alpine - Database of high-mountain grasslands in the Iberian Peninsula

SIVIM Alpine (GIVD ID: EU-00-034) is a thematic database focused on vegetation plots from alpine grasslands of the Iberian Peninsula. The main aim of the database is to centralize historical and new vegetation plots of grassland-like communities above the treeline from Spanish mountains, the Pyrenees (including France and Andorra) and Serra da Estrela (Portugal). The database was registered in GIVD in December 2020, and it is currently available in EVA under semi-restricted regime. SIVIM Alpine includes both digitized relevés from the literature and unpublished data. Most of digitized relevés overlap with SIVIM (GIVD ID EU-00-004) but the header data and the geographical coordinates of SIVIM Alpine have been improved when possible. The database is routinely updated with new surveys conducted with GPS and detailed ecological data. Nowadays, SIVIM Alpine contains 6,420 vegetation plots corresponding to all phytosociological alliances described in the Iberian Peninsula for high-mountain grassland vegetation, 85% of them also classified at the association level. Plot size is available for 80% of the relevés. Plant taxonomy keeps the names provided by the original authors of the relevés, with an additional correspondence to Euro+Med and The Plant List, when possible. The database is continuously updated by revisiting the original sources. Different versions of the database have been used to vegetation analysis at national at continental scales

Germination ecology of the perennial Centaurium somedanum, a specialist species of mountain springs

To improve understanding of how a rare endemic species of Centaurium adapts to a specialized ecological niche, we studied the germination ecology of the mountain spring specialist, C. somedanum, a perennial species restricted to an unusual habitat for this genus. We conducted laboratory experiments with fresh seeds collected from two populations for three consecutive years, to investigate: (1) the effect of temperature and light ongermination; (2) the existence of seed dormancy; and (3) inter-population and inter-annual variation in germinability. Germination occurred only in the light and at relatively low temperatures (15?228C) with no differences between constant and alternating regimes, and a significant decrease at high temperatures (258C and 308C). We found non-deep simple morphophysiological dormancy and variation in seed germinability depending on the year of seed collection. C. somedanum diverged from the common germination characteristics of the genus in: (1) its germination at lower temperatures, which contrasts with what is generally expected in wetland species but could be adaptive in the spring habitat; and (2) its morphophysiological dormancy, which we report here for the first time in the genus and which could be an adaptation to its mountain habitat

The ALHAMBRA Survey: Bayesian Photometric Redshifts with 23 bands for 3 squared degrees

The ALHAMBRA (Advance Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical) survey has observed 8 different regions of the sky, including sections of the COSMOS, DEEP2, ELAIS, GOODS-N, SDSS and Groth fields using a new photometric system with 20 contiguous ~ $300\AA$ filters covering the optical range, combining them with deep $JHKs$ imaging. The observations, carried out with the Calar Alto 3.5m telescope using the wide field (0.25 sq. deg FOV) optical camera LAICA and the NIR instrument Omega-2000, correspond to ~700hrs on-target science images. The photometric system was designed to maximize the effective depth of the survey in terms of accurate spectral-type and photo-zs estimation along with the capability of identification of relatively faint emission lines. Here we present multicolor photometry and photo-zs for ~438k galaxies, detected in synthetic F814W images, complete down to I~24.5 AB, taking into account realistic noise estimates, and correcting by PSF and aperture effects with the ColorPro software. The photometric ZP have been calibrated using stellar transformation equations and refined internally, using a new technique based on the highly robust photometric redshifts measured for emission line galaxies. We calculate photometric redshifts with the BPZ2 code, which includes new empirically calibrated templates and priors. Our photo-zs have a precision of $dz/(1+z_s)=1$ for I<22.5 and 1.4% for 22.5<I<24.5. Precisions of less than 0.5% are reached for the brighter spectroscopic sample, showing the potential of medium-band photometric surveys. The global $P(z)$ shows a mean redshift =0.56 for I=0.86 for I<24.5 AB. The data presented here covers an effective area of 2.79 sq. deg, split into 14 strips of 58.5'x15.5' and represents ~32 hrs of on-target.Comment: The catalog data and a full resolution version of this paper is available at https://cloud.iaa.csic.es/alhambra

The ALHAMBRA survey: Accurate merger fractions by PDF analysis of photometric close pairs

Our goal is to develop and test a novel methodology to compute accurate close pair fractions with photometric redshifts. We improve the current methodologies to estimate the merger fraction f_m from photometric redshifts by (i) using the full probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the sources in redshift space, (ii) including the variation in the luminosity of the sources with z in both the selection of the samples and in the luminosity ratio constrain, and (iii) splitting individual PDFs into red and blue spectral templates to deal robustly with colour selections. We test the performance of our new methodology with the PDFs provided by the ALHAMBRA photometric survey. The merger fractions and rates from the ALHAMBRA survey are in excellent agreement with those from spectroscopic work, both for the general population and for red and blue galaxies. With the merger rate of bright (M_B <= -20 - 1.1z) galaxies evolving as (1+z)^n, the power-law index n is larger for blue galaxies (n = 2.7 +- 0.5) than for red galaxies (n = 1.3 +- 0.4), confirming previous results. Integrating the merger rate over cosmic time, we find that the average number of mergers per galaxy since z = 1 is N_m = 0.57 +- 0.05 for red galaxies and N_m = 0.26 +- 0.02 for blue galaxies. Our new methodology exploits statistically all the available information provided by photometric redshift codes and provides accurate measurements of the merger fraction by close pairs only using photometric redshifts. Current and future photometric surveys will benefit of this new methodology.Comment: Submitted to A&A, 15 pages, 15 figures, 6 tables. Comments are welcome. Close pair systems available at https://cloud.iaa.csic.es/alhambra/catalogues/ClosePairs

Galaxy clusters and groups in the ALHAMBRA Survey

We present a catalogue of 348 galaxy clusters and groups with $0.2<z<1.2$ selected in the 2.78 $deg^2$ ALHAMBRA Survey. The high precision of our photometric redshifts, close to $1\%$, and the wide spread of the seven ALHAMBRA pointings ensure that this catalogue has better mass sensitivity and is less affected by cosmic variance than comparable samples. The detection has been carried out with the Bayesian Cluster Finder (BCF), whose performance has been checked in ALHAMBRA-like light-cone mock catalogues. Great care has been taken to ensure that the observable properties of the mocks photometry accurately correspond to those of real catalogues. From our simulations, we expect to detect galaxy clusters and groups with both $70\%$ completeness and purity down to dark matter halo masses of $M_h\sim3\times10^{13}\rm M_{\odot}$ for $z<0.85$. Cluster redshifts are expected to be recovered with $\sim0.6\%$ precision for $z<1$. We also expect to measure cluster masses with $\sigma_{M_h|M^*_{CL}}\sim0.25-0.35\, dex$ precision down to $\sim3\times10^{13}\rm M_{\odot}$, masses which are $50\%$ smaller than those reached by similar work. We have compared these detections with previous optical, spectroscopic and X-rays work, finding an excellent agreement with the rates reported from the simulations. We have also explored the overall properties of these detections such as the presence of a colour-magnitude relation, the evolution of the photometric blue fraction and the clustering of these sources in the different ALHAMBRA fields. Despite the small numbers, we observe tentative evidence that, for a fixed stellar mass, the environment is playing a crucial role at lower redshifts (z$<$0.5).Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Catalogues and figures available online and under the following link: http://bascaso.net46.net/ALHAMBRA_clusters.htm

Nanostructured thin films obtained from Fischer aminocarbene complexes

The synthesis of four amphiphilic organometallic complexes with the general formula RC = M(CO)5NH(CH2)15CH3, where R is a ferrocenyl 2(a-b) or a phenyl 4(a-b) group as a donor moiety and a Fischer carbene of chromium (0) or tungsten (0) as an acceptor group, are reported. These four push-pull systems formed Langmuir (L) monolayers at the air-water interface, which were characterized by isotherms of surface pressure versus molecular area and compression/expansion cycles (hysteresis curves); Brewster angle microscopic images were also obtained. By using the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) method, molecular monolayers were transferred onto glass substrates forming Z-type multilayers. LB films were characterized through ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques. Results indicated that films obtained from 2b complex [(Ferrocenyl)(hexadecylamine)methylidene] pentacarbonyl tungsten (0) are the most stable and homogeneous; due to their properties, these materials may be incorporated into organic electronic devices

The impact from survey depth and resolution on the morphological classification of galaxies

We consistently analyse for the first time the impact of survey depth and spatial resolution on the most used morphological parameters for classifying galaxies through non-parametric methods: Abraham and Conselice-Bershady concentration indices, Gini, M20moment of light, asymmetry, and smoothness. Three different non-local data sets are used, Advanced Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical (ALHAMBRA) and Subaru/XMMNewton Deep Survey (SXDS, examples of deep ground-based surveys), and Cosmos Evolution Survey (COSMOS, deep space-based survey). We used a sample of 3000 local, visually classified galaxies, measuring their morphological parameters at their real redshifts (z ~ 0). Then we simulated them to match the redshift and magnitude distributions of galaxies in the non-local surveys. The comparisons of the two sets allow us to put constraints on the use of each parameter for morphological classification and evaluate the effectiveness of the commonly used morphological diagnostic diagrams. All analysed parameters suffer from biases related to spatial resolution and depth, the impact of the former being much stronger. When including asymmetry and smoothness in classification diagrams, the noise effects must be taken into account carefully, especially for ground-based surveys. M20 is significantly affected, changing both the shape and range of its distribution at all brightness levels. We suggest that diagnostic diagrams based on 2-3 parameters should be avoided when classifying galaxies in ground-based surveys, independently of their brightness; for COSMOS they should be avoided for galaxies fainter than F814 = 23.0. These results can be applied directly to surveys similar to ALHAMBRA, SXDS and COSMOS, and also can serve as an upper/lower limit for shallower/deeper ones.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad AYA2010-15169, AYA2013-42227-P, AYA2013-4318

The ALHAMBRA survey: reliable morphological catalogue of 22 051 early- and late-type galaxies

Advanced Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical (ALHAMBRA) is photometric survey designed to trace the cosmic evolution and cosmic variance. It covers a large area of ~4 deg2 in eight fields, where seven fields overlap with other surveys, allowing us to have complementary data in other wavelengths. All observations were carried out in 20 continuous, medium band (30 nm width) optical and 3 near-infrared (JHK) bands, providing the precise measurements of photometric redshifts. In addition, morphological classification of galaxies is crucial for any kind of galaxy formation and cosmic evolution studies, providing the information about star formation histories, their environment and interactions, internal perturbations, etc. We present a morphological classification of >40 000 galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey. We associate to every galaxy a probability to be early type using the automated Bayesian code GALSVM. Despite of the spatial resolution of theALHAMBRAimages (~1 arcsec), for 22 051 galaxies, we obtained the contamination by other type of less than 10 per cent. Of those, 1640 and 10 322 galaxies are classified as early-(down to redshifts ~0.5) and late-type (down to redshifts ~1.0), respectively, with magnitudes F613W ≤ 22.0. In addition, for magnitude range 22.0 < F613W ≤ 23.0, we classified other 10 089 late-type galaxies with redshifts ≤1.3.We show that the classified objects populate the expected regions in the colour-mass and colour-magnitude planes. The presented data set is especially attractive given the homogeneous multiwavelength coverage available in the ALHAMBRA fields, and is intended to be used in a variety of scientific applications. The low-contamination catalogue (<10 per cent) is made publicly available with this paper. © 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.This research was supported by the Junta de Andalucía through projects PO8-TIC-03531 and TIC114, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through projects AYA2006-14046, AYA2010-15169, AYA2010-22111-C03-02, AYA2011-29517-C03-01, and the Generalitat Valenciana through project GV/Prometeo 2009/064. MP acknowledges financial support from JAE-Doc program of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), co-funded by the European Social Fund.Peer Reviewe

Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae endophytically colonize cassava roots following soil drench inoculation

AbstractWe investigated the fungal entomopathogens Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae to determine if endophytic colonization could be achieved in cassava. An inoculation method based on drenching the soil around cassava stem cuttings using conidial suspensions resulted in endophytic colonization of cassava roots by both entomopathogens, though neither was found in the leaves or stems of the treated cassava plants. Both fungal entomopathogens were detected more often in the proximal end of the root than in the distal end. Colonization levels of B. bassiana were higher when plants were sampled at 7–9days post-inoculation (84%) compared to 47–49days post-inoculation (40%). In contrast, the colonization levels of M. anisopliae remained constant from 7–9days post-inoculation (80%) to 47–49days post-inoculation (80%), which suggests M. anisopliae is better able to persist in the soil, or as an endophyte in cassava roots over time. Differences in colonization success and plant growth were found among the fungal entomopathogen treatments