Early recognition by Ball and Hooker in 1878 of plant back-colonization (boomerang) events from Macaronesia to Africa

Recent work in island biogeography has shown that back-colonization (‘boomerang’ events) from islands to continents have occurred more frequently than previously understoodWe report possibly the earliest inference of this pattern, by John Ball and Joseph Dalton Hooker in a book published in 1878

GUIDELINES AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MANAGEMENT AND MONITORING PLANS OF THE POTENTIAL SPECIAL AREA OF CONSERVATION OF BANCO DE LA CONCEPCIÓN

The monitoring plan of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) is a fundamental element within its management plan, being designed for meeting the requirements of the site, as well as controlling and informing about the processes affecting the system analysed. Despite its importance, several deficiencies have been found in the monitoring and management plans of the Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) of the Macaronesian Region within Natura 2000 network. One of these shortfalls deals with the indicators selected. Taking advantage of the need of producing a management plan for upgrading the Banco de La Concepción to a SAC, a methodology able to deal with this issue and to generate the necessary guidelines and recommendations on which the management plan can be based, has been set up. Banco de La Concepción is an offshore seamount located in the Macaronesian biogeographical region, characterized by being a spot of high productivity and biodiversity within a more oligotrophic environment. Among the communities and species existing there we can highlight the presence of reef communities considered a priority habitat and included in the Annex I of the European Habitats Directive as sensitive habitat, as well as the presence of the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) and the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), both sensitive species included in the Annex II of the same directive. The methods used have been various including: i) the development of a driver-pressure-state-impacts-response (DPSIR) conceptual model, with the aim of determining the elements affecting the MPA for selecting a suitable list of indicators, ii) the Delphi method for incorporating the experts’ opinion, and iii) the implementation of a Multicriteria-Decision-Analysis (MCDA) approach, specifically the Analytical-Hierarchy-Process (AHP) for determining the suitability of the indicators for the evaluated system, thus generating a novel methodological combination used for the first time in a Spain for MPA evaluation. The results obtained highlight the suitability of 18 indicators from 144 initially detected, divided within four groups considered (driving forces, pressures, state/impact and responses). Among them “Fishing effort”, “Catch per unit effort”, “Extent of Habitats/Communities” and “Existence and adoption of a monitoring plan” stand out as the more appropriate for each group regarding the Banco de La Concepción monitoring. Finally, the advices given by the project INDEMARES have been followed and an alternative methodology able to perform in a transparent way the selection of indicators for the Spanish marine SACs management plans, which they currently lack, has been developed

The promotion of popular and traditional games in elementary education of Boiro´s municipality (A Coruña)

[Resumen] El actual currículum para la Educación Primaria en la Comunidad Autónoma de Galicia recoge la importancia de los juegos populares y tradicionales gallegos y establece los contenidos a trabajar en toda esta etapa educativa, basados principalmente en el reconocimiento, práctica, investigación, historia y valor cultural que este tipo de prácticas tiene para el alumnado de esta comunidad. El juego de bolos en Boiro tuvo en otros tiempos una gran repercusión entre la ciudadanía, siendo probablemente el principal divertimiento de los boirenses en el primer tercio del siglo XX. El objetivo de este estudio es analizar la promoción, difusión y práctica de los juegos populares y tradicionales en general y del juego de bolos en particular en los centros de enseñanza primaria del municipio de Boiro, utilizando técnicas cualitativas para la obtención de datos, siendo la entrevista personal la principal herramienta utilizada para tal fin. Los resultados del estudio nos muestran la necesidad de profundizar en el trabajo de estas prácticas lúdicas en los centros de enseñanza, hoy en día más orientados a cumplir con lo mínimo establecido en el currículum oficial que en dotar de verdadero significado a juegos que forman parte de la historia y cultura del pueblo de Boiro, siendo el juego de bolos la referencia más clara en este sentido. Las Administraciones Públicas deben coordinarse para poner en práctica un proyecto mucho más ambicioso de recuperación de este tipo de prácticas, en el que la escuela debe considerarse como el punto de partida{Abstract] The current curriculum for elementary education in the autonomous community of Galicia includes the importance of Galician traditional and popular games and sets the content to work on all this educational stage, mainly based on recognition, practice, research, history and cultural value that this type of practice has for the students of this community. The skittles´s game in Boiro in the past had a great repercussion among the people, being probably the principal entertainment of the Boiro´s people in the first third of the 20th century. The objective of this study is to analyze the promotion, dissemination and practice of popular and traditional games in general and the skittles´s game in particular into the elementary schools of the municipality of Boiro, using qualitative techniques for data collection, the personal interview to be the main tool used for this purpose. The results of the study show the need to deepen the work of these recreational practices in education centers, nowadays more oriented to comply with the minimum laid down in the official curriculum that give true meaning to games that are part of the history and culture of the village of Boiro, still skittles´s game clearer reference in this regard. Public administrations must be coordinated to implement a much more ambitious project of recovery of this kind of practice, in which the school should be considered as the starting point

Introducción a las islas

Este capítulo no tiene otro objetivo que servir de introducción al mundo de la biogeografía y ecología insular para aquellos lectores alejados a esta disciplina y de paso servir como contexto al resto de los capítulos del presente libro, desarrollados por especialistas en sus respectivas áreas. Con este fin se describen los diferentes tipos de islas existentes, con sus particulares características, los procesos que atañen al poblamiento de éstas, las propiedades biogeográficas que como el empobrecimiento, la disarmonía o el relictualismo las caracterizan y los modelos más importantes que han sido propuestos para entender la dinámica insular. Además, se abordan los procesos ecológicos y evolutivos que se disparan en las islas, así como las tendencias evolutivas que muestran las especies insulares. Finalmente, se diserta acerca de la importancia de las islas como puntos calientes de biodiversidad y acerca del fenómeno de la extinción, tan ligado a ellas.This chapter is an introduction to the world of Island Ecology and it is chiefly dedicated to the readers who are not directly linked to this field. It will also be a context for introducing the rest of the chapters that have been developed by specialists of different research areas.With this purpose, I describe here the different kinds of existing islands, with their characteristics, the processes related to their colonisation, and their particular biogeographical features, such as species empoverishment, disharmony or relictualism, that characterise them. I also describe the most important models that have been proposed to understand the dynamics of islands and I review the ecological and evolutionary processes that are typical of islands, such as the evolutionary trends of insular species. Finally, I treat the importance of islands as biodiversity hotspots and of the phenomenon of extinction, which is closely linked to these territories

Reflexiones acerca de la semejanza entre la evolución biológica y la lingüística

El presente ensayo trata de poner de manifiesto la existencia de una serie de semejanzas en cuanto a la evolución de las especies biológicas y de las lenguas habladas por el ser humano. Para ello realizaremos un repaso por diferentes aspectos que nos permitan ilustrar las características particulares de cada proceso evolutivo