Blog — Pedro Jordano – Pedro Jordano Lab

Posts from my WordPress blog, Pedro Jordano — The Red Notebook, mirrored here in full. The archive goes back to 2003; each post also links to its original version.

Long-distance dispersal

Fruits and plants

Research

Seed dispersal

Extreme events

Kernel

Long-distance dipersal

Long-distance dispersal (LDD), especially for plants, poses tremendous challenges for study, sampling and analysis (Jordano 2017). Though infrequent, LDD events drive colonization, genetic diversity, and responses to environmental change. Their proper characterization is complicated because they…

22 September 2026

In memoriam de Eugene W. Schupp: ciencia, amistad y legado ecológico

Doñana

Personal

Science

Seed dispersal

colleagues

Geno

Projects

Research

spanish

In memoriam de Eugene W. Schupp: ciencia, amistad y legado ecológico Eugene W. Schupp (izquda.) y Pedro Jordano (dcha.) en el Parque Nacional de Doñana; 19 Noviembre 2024. Con una enorme tristeza y mi cabeza llena de maravillosos recuerdos quiero comunicaros el reciente fallecimiento, el pasado…

3 July 2026

Our new book on ecological interactions

biodiversity

Projects

Research

Book

CYTED

interactions

Mutualism

We have just published a new book, a fruit of our joint project funded by CYTED, a collaboration of more than 5 Latin American countries and Spain and focusing on the analysis of ecological interactions among species. In fact we’ve been collaborating for many years within this and similar…

1 September 2024

21 years, and counting

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Projects

Blog

blogging

Personal

Research

writing

Now I realize it’s been ca. 21 years since my first blog. Yet, I have to say I had a (too long) period of silence. For some reason I think I need to explain some of favorite themes, ideas, and projects, and share them. And that was the primary reason to start blogging when few … Continue reading…

31 August 2024

Junipers

biodiversity

Doñana

Fruits and plants

interactions

mutualism

Projects

Seed dispersal

Frugivory

juniper

Network

Research

Juniperus phoenicea cones. Doñana Biological Reserve, Huelva, Spain. Last year we started a new project after finishing two relevant ones. One was a large LifeWatch project that deserves an in-depth and better commentary in an upcoming post. Our previous project, funded by the Agencia Estatal de…

31 August 2024

The Return of the Jedi

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The last year has been extremely busy for me, with (unfortunately) very little time to think about, and draft, new posts for the blog. A lot of interesting things happened, with many changes in the lab and still pending some important news about our research plans and prospects. Besides, it has…

11 December 2017

Dodo

Animals

biodiversity

Fruits and plants

interactions

islands

Megafauna

mutualism

Seed dispersal

dodo

extinction

Mauritius

Sapotaceae

seed size

tambalacoque

As stated by David Quammen, “the story of the dodo is obscured by a fog of uncertainties.” By about 1690, if not earlier, it was extinct in its area of endemism, Mauritius. Starting around 1500 with the arrival of Europeans, Mauritius, Rodrigues, and Réunion in the Indian Ocean lost 33 species…

31 December 2016

Ginkgo

Fruits and plants

interactions

islands

Megafauna

mutualism

Seed dispersal

Fruit

ginkgo

Mutualism

Ginkgoes and dodos are my two favorite icons of “ghost” mutualistic interactions. So, I had the two last posts on megafauna and extinct interactions dedicated to them. There are only five living groups of seed plants, and ginkgo is one of them; just a single species. Ginkgoes (Ginkgo biloba,…

31 December 2016

Megafauna in Madagascar

Animals

biodiversity

interactions

islands

Megafauna

mutualism

Seed dispersal

Madagascar

Pleistocene

A scene in Madagascar in the late Pleistocene. From left to right: elephant bird (Aepyornis maximus), Malagasy giant rat (Hypogeomys antimena), melanistic giant fossa (Cryptoprocta spelea), monkey lemur (Archaeolemur), streaked tenrec (Hemicentetes), and koala lemur (Megaladapis). Madagascar had…

30 December 2016

It takes guts to disperse seeds: the amazing physiologies of megafauna

Animals

biodiversity

interactions

Megafauna

mutualism

Seed dispersal

conservation

Frugivores

mammals

Megafauna can be divided in two large groups in terms of food digestion: foregut and hindgut fermenters, depending on where in the digestive tract the ingesta is digested. Foregut fermenters include ruminants, pseudoruminants (i.e., hippo, camelids), just the hoatzin among birds, and the…

28 December 2016

Moas

islands

Megafauna

mutualism

ratites

Seed dispersal

The diversity of moas was extraordinary, including nine (10, for some authors) species in six different genera, all them endemic to New Zealand. They nicely illustrate megafaunal birds, whose extant furgivorous relatives include cassowaries and, with partial frugivory, kiwis. Moas weighted…

28 December 2016

The Gardeners of the Forest

Animals

Megafauna

mutualism

Seed dispersal

elephants

Frugivory

Elephants are the major gardeners of the rainforest. Weighing around 4000 kg, they are more than twice as large as the next biggest sympatric animal species (the one-horned rhinoceros) and four times as large as the third-place finisher (the gaur, Bos gaurus). Current taxonomy recognizes two…

26 December 2016

Extant Megafauna Frugivores

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The end-Pleistocene mega-mammal extinction (also including other vertebrate groups) likely had a severe effect on present-day megafauna assemblages and impaired important functions associated with ecological interactions involving megafauna taxa. The extant mega-mammal faunas around the world…

23 December 2016

The Cryptic Extinctions

Animals

biodiversity

Megafauna

Seed dispersal

Asia

bovid

extinction

Frugivory

mammal

Red List

UICN

McConkey, K.R. & O’Farrill, G. (2016) Loss of seed dispersal before the loss of seed dispersers. Biological Conservation, 201, 38–49. Cryptic function loss is a loss in the function of a species that is hidden by its continued presence in the ecosystem; the species may still be present and…

23 December 2016

Megafauna-Dependent Plants

Brazil

interactions

Megafauna

mutualism

Projects

Frugivory

project

Science

Seed dispersal

How did megafauna-dependent plants survive after the demise of the giant Pleistocene seed dispersers? Before hand, be warned that coextinctions are very difficult to assess and demonstrate in nature, especially for certain groups (e.g., hosts and ectoparasites). Moreover, think of the myriad…

18 December 2016

Extinct Megafauna Frugivores

Megafauna

mutualism

Seed dispersal

Blog

Projects

The diversity of extinct megafauna frugivores was extremely high in different continents, and a number of them played a central role in the evolution of fruit traits we see today. While the largest South American extant mammal is the tapir (Baird’s, up to 400 kg), consider that 100% of…

16 December 2016

How To Make A Megafauna Fruit

Brazil

interactions

Megafauna

mutualism

Projects

Seed dispersal

Just make it big, very big. Well, it’s not just that…- yet we’ll probably agree that megafauna fruits are, in some sense, overbuilt. If we take the two major types of fruits that extant megafauna consume (e.g., elephants, rhino, etc.), we find two distinct typoplogies. Both are extremely…

16 December 2016

Seed Dispersal Anachronisms

Brazil

Megafauna

mutualism

Seed dispersal

In 1982, Daniel H. Janzen and Paul S. Martin advanced the hypothesis that a number of plant species we see in present-day forests shows fruits and seed dispersal adaptations not consistent with their interactions with extant frugivores. Thus, only when we consider the extensive frugviory shown…

16 December 2016

Seed dispersal by megafauna (extinct and extant)

Animals

interactions

Megafauna

mutualism

Seed dispersal

Blog

Brazil

Projects

Research

I’ll be posting a series on megafauna (extinct and extant) and megafauna-dependent plants that I’ve been contributing to our Facebook page Frugivores & Seed Dispersal during the month of December. The posts focused on megafauna frugivores and megafauna-dependent fruits and seeds, and the…

16 December 2016

Chasing interactions

biodiversity

interactions

mutualism

Networks

Papers

Projects

web of life

Ecological interactions are the wireframe of biodiversity. No single species on Earth lives without interacting with other species. Thus, biodiversity is more than just species: interactions among them are the architecture that supports ecosystems. It’s the Web of Life. Just in the same way we…

19 April 2016

Curso “Frugivoria e dispersão de sementes”, 2016

Talks, teaching

Travel

Brazil

Collaborations

Frugivores

Frugivory

Seed dispersal

Frugivory and Seed Dispersal Course (Portuguese/Spanish) – 7-11 March 2016 Registrations: 4 Créditos – 01 a 12/02/2016. @UNESP_PG_EcoBio with @mauro_galetti @pedro_jordano. Part of the Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Biodiversidade. UNESP, Rio Claro. Fotos: Marina Cortes, Guto Balieiro,…

15 January 2016

Our paper on defaunation effects on carbon storage in tropical forests

Papers

Projects

atlantic_forest

defaunation

Plant-animal mutualisms for seed dispersal are key to preserve tropical forests and many other ecosystems (e.g., Mediterranean forests). These interactions may go extinct, and pervasively affect the forests in many aspects. One of them is a substantial loss of carbon storage capacity, simply as…

22 December 2015

Our symposium at the BES annual meeting, 2015

Travel

congress

dispersal

A brief great summary of our talks at the British Ecological Society meeting in Edinburgh (UK) this week, by CoDisperse. The summary of the tweet feed is here.This was the thematic topic on Tuesday afternoon, focusing on “Dispersal Processes Driving Plant Movement: Challenges for Range Shifts in…

19 December 2015

Rey Jaime I Award, Environmental Sciences

Projects

Talks, teaching

IEG

Research

I’m very honored with being awarded the Rey Jaime I Award in Environmental Sciences this year. I was surprised with the decision of the jury during my stay in Brazil during this year’s Ciência Sem Fronteiras stay. It was great to have many, many messages with support and congratulations from…

12 May 2014

How do furgivorous birds build-up their fruit meals?

Animals

Papers

Projects

Talks, teaching

Birds

Frugivores

Fruit color

Research

Sylvia

This is the third part of a trilogy of papers dedicated to understanding the evolution of fruit colors and visual signals evolved by plants to attract animal mutualists. The paper is now available online at the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biology website. Theory predicts that trade among…

8 January 2014

Just published the third edition of SEEDS

Papers

Book

Frugivory

Seed dispersal

The 3rd edition of the book, originally edited by Michael Fenner, “Seeds: the ecology of regeneration in natural plant communities” is just published (ISBN 978-1-78064-183-6). It has been edited by R.S. Gallagher, and you can find in it a revised and updated version of my chapter on “Fruits and…

8 January 2014

Heermann’s gull in my recent trip to California

Animals

Birding

Travel

birding

Birds

gull

USA

These are some shots of my recent trip to California, last October, where I had the opportunity to do a whale watching trip offshore Monterrey Bay, from Moss Landing. I’ll be posting more photos soon… Heermann’s (Larus heermanni (Cassin, 1852) is one of my favorite gulls, with a beautiful plain…

5 January 2014

Now the California gull, Larus californicus

Animals

Birding

Travel

birding

Birds

gull

USA

This is the California gull, Larus californicus (Lawrence, 1854). It is subs. californicus. Here we see the white mirrors in P9 and P10, which are characteristic, and the white trailing edge to inner wing. This (both photos of same individual) is an adult (at least 4cy) with the winter plumage…

5 January 2014

Our new book, Mutualistic networks, just published by Princeton University Press

Papers

Projects

Talks, teaching

We have just published our book “Mutualistic Networks“, the no. 53 issue in the series Monographs in Population Biology of Princeton University Press. Mutualistic interactions among plants and animals have played a paramount role in shaping biodiversity. Yet the majority of studies on…

23 December 2013

Collared pratincoles

Animals

Birds

Birdwatching

Spain

These are several shots of Collared pratincoles (Glareola pratincola, Glareolidae) that I took last weekend, at Marismas de Barbate, Cádiz. It was a very nice day, cloudy, but I was lucky to get close to the birds, creeping a lot. These birds are really beautiful. The geographic distribution is…

31 May 2013

Our study on functional extinction of frugivores, published in Science

Animals

Papers

Pollination

Birds

Brazil

Canary Islands

flowers

Frugivores

Frugivory

Gallotia

pollination

project

Projects

Seed dispersal

tropical

Our new paper “Functional Extinction of Birds Drives Rapid Evolutionary Changes in Seed Size”, just published in this week issue of Science. Mauro Galetti, Roger Guevara, Marina C. Côrtes, Rodrigo Fadini, Sandro Von Matter, Abraão B. Leite, Fábio Labecca, Thiago Ribeiro, Carolina S. Carvalho,…

31 May 2013

Components of pollination effectiveness and their consequences in insular pollinator assemblages

Animals

Papers

Pollination

Canary Islands

flowers

Gallotia

pollination

Projects

Our paper “Quantity and quality components of effectiveness in insular pollinator assemblages” online in Oecologia. Thanks Cande and Alfredo. This is a field study of the pollination of Isoplexis canariensis by birds and lizards in the Canary Islands, a part of Cande Rodríguez PhD project.…

21 February 2013

Plotting effectiveness landscapes, a companion to our paper in New Phytologist

Papers

Statistics

code

Code for plotting the effectiveness landscape of mutualisms adding isolines of equal effectiveness values. Effectiveness landscapes are the two-dimensional representation of the possible combinations of the quantity and the quality of mutualistic services (seed dispersal, pollination) and with…

11 November 2012

Muriquis

Animals

Travel

Brazil

Course

Frugivory

Primates

Seed dispersal

Muriquis (Brachyteles arachnoides) are the largest neotropical primates and the largest mammal endemic to Brazil, reaching more than 12 kg (Reis et al., 2006). They are endemic to the SE Brazil. Previously recorded as different subspecies, muriquis are currently recognized as two distinct…

7 July 2012

R libraries in ecology

Datasets

Statistics

code

ecology

Evolution

Genetics

We all use the general libraries for data analysis and model fitting, but a nice thing with R is that you can interface any function with others. And a bunch of packages have been developed with ecological research in mind. Recently, Scott Chamberlain posted a good summary of new R libraries…

27 June 2012

Updated dataset on fruit colors in Dryad

Datasets

Papers

dataset

Fruit

Fruit color

Research

I’ve updated our dataset on fruit colors that we used in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology paper. The full metadata is here, in the Dryad open-source repository. You can find this and other datasets also in the web page.

16 June 2012

pedroj (Pedro Jordano) · GitHub

Tech

code

Statistics

pedroj (Pedro Jordano) · GitHub. I’m using github to keep collections of my code as a repository. Instead of using their repo service, I’m using the gists, uploading chunks of R (also MATLAB/Octave) code I’m working with. A gist is just a chunk of code you are working with and might be useful to…

30 April 2012

“Mutualistic networks” book sent to the press

Papers

Tech

Book

Manuscripts

Technical

Yes, we sent the book manuscript to Princeton University Press last week. It has been an intensive work during the last four years but I’ve really enjoyed this adventure. I’ve been delighted with the creative work with the figures (around 60), and the challenges of seeting all them in grayscale,…

29 April 2012

Moving to WordPress

Projects

Tech

Blog

Mac

I’m about to complete the moving of my blog (started by early 2003…) to WordPress. There are several reasons for this- the most important being the ability to edit from the tablet and phone, and better versatility with the editing and composition of entries. I keep using iWeb and Dreamweaver for…

28 April 2012

University of Sevilla PhD award for Francisco Rodríguez

Projects

IEG

The University of Sevilla has awarded Francisco Rodríguez with the PhD Excellence Award, 2012. Paco carried out his PhD project in the lab, working on dispersal ecology of Laurus nobilis. Big congratulations Paco!!!

28 April 2012

Just arrived from the field course in Brazil

Talks, teaching

Travel

Birds

Brazil

Course

Frugivory

Talk

I’m just arrived from the field course in Brazil. Everything run very well and we really enjoyed this edition. Here is a photo of Aburria jacutinga in a Cecropia glazouvi tree. I’ve uploaded more photos in my FB portal.

30 March 2012

Megafauna fruits and seeds photos updated

Projects

Talks, teaching

Fruit

Megafauna

I’m in the process of moving photo repositories to iCloud and have my previous photos of megafauna fruits and seeds moved to this gallery. You can access the photos here. These photos were taken in the herbarium of Museu Goeldi (Belém, Pará, Brazil) in 2002. They include many of the species we…

15 October 2011

Our new paper on coevolution in complex networks, Editor’s Choice in Science magazine

Papers

Coevolution

Editor’s Choice section of Science (vol. 333: 1201) this week includes a comment by Andrew Sudgen on our recent paper just published in Ecology Letters. The comment highlights the innovative aspects of studying multispecific coevolution and developing the first model to address the consequences…

2 September 2011

Our new paper on coevolution in complex networks just published in Ecology Letters

Papers

Coevolution

Models

Just appeared in the Sept issue of Ecol. Lett. A major current challenge in evolutionary biology is to understand how networks of interacting species shape the coevolutionary process. We combined a model for trait evolution with data for twenty plant-animal assemblages to explore coevolution in…

9 August 2011

Lizards, endemic island plants and extinctions

Projects

Canary Islands

Frugivores

Seed dispersal by lizards is an insular phenomenon. In the Canary Islands, many fleshy-fruited plants depend on lizards for their successful dispersal and recruitment. We are now working in a project directed by Alfredo Valido to analyze the movement ecology of Canarian endemic Gallotia lizards…

30 July 2011

Fruit colors paper just published in Journal of Evolutionary Biology

Papers

Fruit

Fruit color

Phylogeny

Our study on the evolution of visual displays in plants appeared in the last issue of JEB. We are still working on this subject, now exploring how effective are visual displays (fruit colors) in attracting avian frugivores that might use color cues to build up complex and diverse fruit diets. We…

16 March 2011

Number One

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Projects

This is my note #1. Created 01/01/2011 @ 00:35. Really a few minutes after the Biodiversity year has ended. What do we have? Probably a few thousands more extinct species, many of them we yet don’t know. But we have also more knowledge to fight this fast-paced trend of biodiversity loss. Let’s…

1 January 2011

Fruit colors

Projects

Coevolution

Evolution

Frugivory

Fruit

Fruit color

Papers

Seed dispersal

Fruits show an immense diversity of colors and displays. However, we are still far from a general theory for the evolution of fruit displays. The main elements of those displays do not only include color itself, but also characteristics of the fruit “design” (ow the fruit is built) like number…

12 December 2010

PhD thesis defense by Débora Rother

Projects

Visitors

Brazil

Seed dispersal

PhD thesis defense by Débora Rother: “ Débora defended her thesis at UNESP (Rio Claro, Brazil) the 30th Nov. The thesis is entitled: ‘Dispersão de sementes e processos de limitação demográfica de plantas em ambientes com e sem bambus na floresta pluvial Atlântica’. She addressed the patterns of…

7 December 2010

Long-distance dispersal events

Travel

Collaborations

Meetings

Seed dispersal

The long and short of it Back from the very interesting workshop organized in Madrid by Juanjo Robledo-Arnuncio. We focussed on long-distance dispersal events (LDD) and their importance to understand the potential responses to climate change. Changes in the environment will force adaptations or…

5 December 2010

Talk

Talks, teaching

Meetings

Seed dispersal

Forthcoming talk – Dispersal near and far An invited talk, “Frugivores, seeds and genes: tracking the LDD events and their consequences” in the workshop organized by Juanjo Robledo-Arnuncio: Long-distance dispersal: perspectives and new directions. CIFOR-INIA, Madrid.

1 December 2010

Our review on seed dispersal effectiveness just published in New Phytologist

Papers

Coevolution

Frugivory

Mutualism

Seed dispersal

Our review on seed dispersal effectiveness just published in New Phytologist: “Just appeared in the last issue of New Phytologist: our paper ‘Seed dispersal effectiveness revisited: a conceptual review’ [DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03402.x], co-authored by Eugene W. Schupp, myself, and José M.…

5 October 2010

Starting fieldwork in Teno Bajo

Projects

Canary Islands

Frugivory

Research

Seed dispersal

Starting fieldwork in Teno Bajo: “ We (Alfredo, Néstor and myself) are this week with field work in Teno Bajo (Teneriffe), finishing georreferencing and sampling of orijama (Neochamaelea pulverulenta) plants in the study plots. The work is going fine in this spectacular site. We study seed…

27 September 2010

Gibraltar

Travel

Meetings

Gibraltar: “Arrived from a Symposium in Gibraltar: the CALPE Conference dedicated this year to the Pleistocene ecological changes and the evolution of bird migrations systems. It was an homage to the work of Reginald Moreau organized by Clive Finlayson and people at the Museum.” (Via Weblog de…

20 September 2010

New papers

Papers

Research

Forthcoming papers New papers, to be published later this year, now in press include: – Rodríguez-Sánchez, F., Hampe, A., Jordano, P. and Arroyo, J. 2010. Past tree range dynamics in the Iberian Peninsula inferred through phylogeography and palaeodistribution modelling: A review. Review of…

10 September 2010

Special issue of Acta Oecologica

Papers

Meetings

Special issue of Acta Oecologica: “The plenary lectures of the Frugivory and Seed Dispersal meeting in Montpellier will be published as an special issue of the journal Acta Oecologica. This will include ca. 30 papers.The issue is edited by Pierre M. Forget, with members of the academic committee…

6 September 2010

Frugivory and Seed Dispersal Meeting, Montpellier

Travel

Frugivory

Meetings

Seed dispersal

The frugivory and seed dispersal meeting was organized this year in Montpellier, France. FSD2010 entitled “Frugivores and Seed Dispersal: Mechanisms and Consequences of a Key Interaction for Biodiversity”. It has been quite a success. We are preparing a ‘meeting report’ paper for Biology…

21 June 2010

Brazil field course

Talks, teaching

Travel

Frugivory

Talk

Teaching

Field Course Frugivory and Seed Dispersal, Brazil I’ve been in Brazil again for the 7th edition of our field course “Frugivoria e Dispersão de Sementes”, co-organized with Mauro Galetti, Marco A. Pizo, and Wesley Silva. This year we run the course in Intervales Park, since Cardoso was not…

28 March 2010

ECOFLOR meeting

Talks, teaching

Meetings

Travel

ECOFLOR meeting in Teneriffe The ECOFLOR meeting will be this year in Teneriffe, the 28-29 January. This is the 7th meeting of this great group of people interested in pollination biology.

8 January 2010

Last papers

Papers

IEG

Research

Last papers: “Our last papers have appeared in Molecular Ecology Resources, dealing with the description of new DNA microsatellite markers for Frangula alnus and Rhamnus alaternus (Rhamnaceae), two species we study in Los Alcornocales area. The next related paper will describe the markers for…

2 July 2009

5 Annual Harvard Plant Biology Symposium Plants and the evolution of cooperation & trading

Talks, teaching

Travel

Coevolution

Mutualism

5th Annual Harvard Plant Biology Symposium Plants and the evolution of cooperation & trading: “Just arrived from the Harvard Univ. symposium,dedicated this year to mutualisms and the evolution of coorperation. Very interesting inter-disciplinary meeting with ecologists, economists, etc. and…

10 May 2009

Defaunation

Talks, teaching

Travel

Collaborations

Meetings

Living in a defaunated world Rodolfo Dirzo and Mauro Galetti have set up a symposium on the consequences of defaunation in tropical forests. The meeting is co-sponsored by The Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) and the Department of Biology at Stanford University. The registration for…

15 February 2009

Darwin in Sevilla

Talks, teaching

Evolution

Meetings

Darwin in Sevilla Together with Juan Arroyo, Encarnacion Aguilar and Teo Marañon, I’m organizing a seminar series at University of Sevilla to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin. For the event (25-27 Feb 2009) we have set up also an exhibit about evolution and evolutionary biology,…

7 February 2009

Moving to new building

Projects

IEG

Research

Moving to a new building It has been a long time since my last post here… We are now in a new house: at Isla de La Cartuja. Much better in terms of functionality and space but without the lovely charm of Pabellon del Perú. We moved to the Pabellon in April 1984, so it’s … Continue reading…

7 February 2009

Kimberly

Visitors

IEG

Research

Kimberly arrived Kimberly Holbrook arrived today. She will be here with a post-doc contract (Juan de la Cierva post-doc from the Spanish Minsterio de Educación), working on seed dispersal patterns of tropical species compared to temperate species. What we want to do is to assess comparatively…

14 February 2008

Fruit color brief course

Talks, teaching

Fruit

Fruit color

Teaching

Course on measurement of colors of flowers and fruits Together with Alfredo Valido, I gave a short and introductory course on fruit colors and their measurement. We gave that course just prior to the ECOFLOR meeting in Valencia, one of the nicest meetings we have here, where a bunch of great…

4 February 2008

Megafauna manuscript accepted!

Papers

Projects

Collaborations

Frugivory

Megafauna

New paper in PLoS One We now have our manuscript on seed dispersal by extinct megafauna accepted in PLoS One. It should come to the light by the 5th March. Guimarães Jr, P., Galetti, M. and Jordano, P. 2008. Seed dispersal anachronisms: rethinking the fruits extinct megafauna ate. PLoS ONE.

2 February 2008

Brazil, again

Travel

Brazil

Collaborations

Just arrived from Brazil I’m just arrived from a trip to Brazil. This time Mauro is in Stanford university, so I was doing field work in Ilha de Cardoso ‘bem soazinho’, working with spatial patterns of recruitment in the palm Euterpe edulis, one of our favorite species there. In addition I went…

1 February 2008

Updates

Projects

IEG

Research

Web page updates I’ve updated the web page with new information about the research lines at the lab, projects, and personnel. This includes brief descriptions of the main research lines, collaborations, etc. All are accesible from the Research web page under Research Lines.

23 December 2007

New paper in PNAS

Papers

Coevolution

Mutualism

We have just published our paper “Olesen, J.M., Bascompte, J., Dupont, Y., and Jordano, P. 2007. The modularity of pollination networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 104: 19891-19896”. These are great news since it represents a very nice work lead by Jens. Here we relate…

6 December 2007

PhD thesis defense by Jofre Carnicer

Projects

IEG

Research

Jofre Carnicer defended his thesis at Universitat Auntónoma de Barcelona. The thesis is entitled: “Species richness, interaction networks, and diversification in bird communities: a synthetic ecological and evolutionary perspective”. He addresses large-scale patterns of species diversity and…

30 November 2007

Updated Equipo57 photo album

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Art

Computers

Personal

Science

Sevilla

Equipo 57 I’ve updated the photo gallery with a special section dedicated to my favorite Equipo 57 sculptures. Equipo 57 was a group of artists based in Córdoba that had a close interaction with my father, Diego Jordano Barea, because of their shared interests in topological geometry and the…

18 November 2007

New frugivory and seed dispersal book

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Frugivory

Meetings

Seed dispersal

New book on Fruits and Frugivores I’ve just received the copy of the new book edited by CABI that summarizes the communications to the 4th International Conference on Frugivory and Seed dispersal, held in Brisbane, Australia, 2005. The book is very nicely edited. You can find a sample chapter…

30 September 2007

Some updates after summer

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IEG

Projects

Research

Travel

After summer Well, it has been a long time without news in the blog, but here we are again. 😉 Summer has been quiet; I’ve been at Cadiz coast with Myriam and Perico, with a short visit by Diego. It has been a great time to read, think and write but, again, no painting at … Continue reading “Some…

18 September 2007

New paper on coextinction cascades in plant-animal mutualistic networks

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Coevolution

Mutualism

Papers

New paper in Nature Three days ago we had the good news of our manuscript on coextinction cascades in plant-animal mutualistic networks being finally accepted in Nature. These are very good news for the group, especially for our efforts in the last 4 years working on complex webs of…

29 May 2007

Field course on Frugivory and Seed Dispersal finished

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Brazil

Frugivory

Seed dispersal

Teaching

Curso de Frugivoria em Ilha de Cardoso, SP, Brazil The 2007 edition of the field course on Frugivory and Seed Dispersal finished. We had an excellent time at Ilha de Cardoso. Not many ripe fruits of palmito juçara (Euterpe edulis) this year but we carried out lots of focal watches at Symplocos…

10 March 2007

New paper on seed dispersal by animal frugivores in PNAS

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Genetics

Papers

Prunus mahaleb

Research

Seed dispersal

New paper in PNAS just published We have just published our paper “Jordano, P., C. García, J.A. Godoy, and J.L. García-Castaño. 2007. Differential contribution of frugivores to complex seed dispersal patterns. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences USA, 104: 3278-3282”. These are great news…

5 March 2007

Pre-doctoral grant available

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IEG

Projects

Research

Pre-doctoral grant available La convocatoria de ayudas para becas predoctorales FPI está próxima a ser publicada por el MEC. Dentro de nuestro proyecto “DISPERSIÓN DE SEMILLAS POR ANIMALES FRUGÍVOROS: EVENTOS A LARGA DISTANCIA Y REDES DE CONECTIVIDAD EN POBLACIONES FRAGMENTADAS” (CGL2006-00373),…

13 January 2007

Cris García PhD defense

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IEG

Research

Cris García PhD defense The defense of Cris’ PhD Thesis took place the 5th Dec at University of Sevilla. We had a great time and everything went well. Members of the committee were Salvador Talavera, Sophie Gerber, Miguel Verdú, José María Gómez, and Gabriel Gutiérrez. The thesis is entitled:…

5 December 2006

Visits to IEG

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IEG

Visitors

Visits to IEG We had a number of visits at IEG during September and the first half of October: Andy Jones (at STRI, Panama), and Sabrina Russo (Univ. Cambridge, UK), Yoshihisa Suyama and Motoshi Tomita (Tohoku Univ, Japan). Also we had Margarita Rios, from Colombia (Fundación Ecoandina y…

22 October 2006

Paulo’s PhD thesis

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IEG

Projects

Research

Paulo’s PhD thesis Paulo R. Guimarães Jr. defended his PhD thesis at University of Campinas, Brazil. He has worked on plant-animal interaction networks from a theoretical perspective, addressing connectivity patterns, the origin of truncation in the connectivity distributions, nestedness…

2 October 2006

Joel Cohen visit

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IEG

Research

Visitors

This week we had the pleasure of having Joel Cohen visiting us. Invited by Jordi, he was discussing work with different people, and gave an interesting talk. We visited Doñana natl. park and the Los Alcornocales area.

11 December 2004

EURYI Awards in Stockholm

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IEG

Research

Travel

EURYI Awards in Stockholm We went to Stockholm for the EURYI Award ceremony, which took place during the Open Science Forum 2004. There were six spanish scientists awarded. Here are a couple of shots of the ceremony, and Jordi with the certificate of the prize. Very nice moments for all us, and…

5 September 2004

Visitors form INIA group and great discussion

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IEG

Research

Visitors

Today we had a great visit: Peter Smouse and Fréderic Austerlitz with the group at INIA, including Ricardo Alía, Santiago C. González-Martínez, Juanjo Robledo-Arnuncio and María Valbuena Carabaña. We were discussing for the whole day about gene flow estimates for pollen and seed dispersal in…

23 April 2004

John Sabo and Leah Gerber with us

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IEG

Research

Visitors

John and Leah are just arrived in Sevilla. They’ll be with us for 6 weeks, collaborating chiefly with Jordi.

18 April 2004

Acorns

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Collaborations

IEG

Research

Acorns I’ve started a collaboration with José María Gómez (Rocka) to study dispersal patterns of Quercus ilex acorns by jays Garrulus glandarius and mice Apodemus sylvaticus. We’ll be using microsatellite markers and our goal at this moment is just startup and select the markers and test them.…

10 April 2004

Visit: Mauro

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Collaborations

IEG

Research

Visitors

Mauro Galetti visiting Sevilla Mauro Galetti is visiting us during March. We will be working on collaboration projects with fleshy fruits characteristics, specifically with Mata Atlantica species. We are also preparing the next frugivory and seed dispersal course in Brazil for next May-June. Our…

5 March 2004

A symposium at Univ. Aarhus, Denmark: networks, interactions, islands

Travel

Meetings

A symposium at Univ. Aarhus, Denmark: networks, interactions, islands Jens M. Olesen is organizing a symposium “Mother Nature: networks, interactions, islands” for next March 2004 at Aarhus Univ., Dept. Ecology and Genetics. This is a 2-d meeting with exciting talks and discussion, the invited…

31 December 2003

Alfredo Valido joins IEG with a post-doc position

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IEG

Research

Alfredo Valido will join our group, starting Jan 2004, with a post-doc Marie Curie Fellowship from the EU and an i3P contract from CSIC. These grants are for a 3-yr period. We’ll be doing research on Canary Island fleshy fruits and seed dispersers, chiefly comparisons of fruit traits of…

1 December 2003

Megafauna

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Coevolution

Frugivory

Fruit

Megafauna

Seed dispersal

Photos of megafauna fruits Go here if you want a view of megafauna fruits photos . These were taken by Mauro Galetti and me at the Museo Goeldi Herbarium (Belem, Brazil) and correspond to species we analyzed in our ongoing project on megafauna fruits.

30 July 2003

Phylogeography of Frangula alnus

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Papers

Research

Phylogeography of Frangula alnus Our manuscript “Hampe, A., J. Arroyo, P. Jordano, and R.J. Petit. 2003. Rangewide phylogeography of a bird-dispersed Eurasian shrub: contrasting Mediterranean and temperate glacial refugia” is now tentatively accepted for Molecular Ecology vol. 12, pending minor…

21 July 2003

New research projects for the next 3 years

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IEG

Projects

Research

New research projects for the next 3 years Both Jordi and myself just received the approval of our new projects for the next 3 years by the spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia. This is great news. These projects will keep our two main research lines on landscape patterns of gene flow via…

9 May 2003

Collaborative project CSIC-CNPq with Brazil

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Brazil

Collaborations

Frugivory

Mutualism

Seed dispersal

We just received approval for a collaborative project with Mauro Galetti (UNESP, Rio Claro, Brazil), as a part of the agreement between the spanish CSIC and brazilian CNPq for years 2004-2005. We’ll focus on palm seed dispersal ecology, megafauna fruits, and comparisons of fruit-frugivore…

21 April 2003

Collaborative project CSIC-CNPq with Brazil

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9 April 2003

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