Notebooks of the Fundación General CSIC / Nº 9 / June 2012 / Published quarterly / Price: 9 euros ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Notebooks of the Fundación General CSIC / June 2012 4 12 46 68 The Biodiversity Research on Threatened On Banco Santander. Crisis Species Biodiversity… Committed to the Environment 09 LYCHNOS Notebooks of the Fundación General CSIC Nº 9 JUNE 2012 Executive Editor Reyes Sequera Assistant Editor Sira Laguna Page layouts DiScript Preimpresión, S. L. Illustration Lola Gómez Redondo Translation Duncan Gilson Published by President Emilio Lora-Tamayo D’Ocón Director Javier Rey Campos Address Príncipe de Vergara, nº 9 - 2ª derecha; Madrid 28001 www.fgcsic.es © Fundación General CSIC, 2012. All rights reserved. Use by third parties of the contents of this journal without the prior written consent of the copyright holder may constitute a criminal offence under intellectual property law. Printed by: DiScript Preimpresion, S. L. Legal Deposit: M-33022-2010. ISSN: 2172-0207 CONTENTS LYCHNOS Nº 9 JUNE 2012 01 The Biodiversity Crisis. Rafael Zardoya ......................................................... 4 02 Research on Threatened Species ........................................................... 12 02.1 The Iberian lynx joins the genomic age. Toni Gabaldon ................................... 14 02.2 New germinations bring hope for the most endangered Spanish plants. Pedro Jiménez-Mejías, Elena Amat, Inés Álvarez and Pablo Vargas ................ 22 02.3 The relentless fight against chytridiomycosis: the big threat to the world’s amphibians. Andrés Fernández Loras, Jaime Bosch Pérez, Matthew Fisher and Trenton WJ Garner .......................................................... 28 02.4 Endangered birds and farming: new conservation strategy approaches. Laura Cardador, Gerard Bota, David Giralt, Fabián Casas, Beatriz Arroyo, Carlos Cantero, François Mougeot, Lourdes Viladomiu, Judit Moncunill and Lluís Brotons ................................................................... 33 02.5 Scientific progress on the conservation of Patella ferruginea. Javier Guallart, José Templado, Marta Calvo, Iván Acevedo, Eusebio Bonilla, Josu Pérez, Annie Machordom, Juan B. Peña, Ángel Luque and Paola Martín .................... 40 03 On Biodiversity… ........................................................................................... 46 03.1 The Mediterranean’s mosaic landscape and its survival: from pastoralism to the role of exotic species. Jorge Cassinello Roldán ................................................................................. 48 03.2 Conservation biology viewed from the perspective of evolutionary biology. Xavier Bellés ................................................................................................... 57 03.3 Secrets of some of the Pyrenees’ threatened plants. María Begoña García ..................................................................................... 62 04 Banco Santander. Committed to the Environment ........................... 68 04.1 Banco Santander, close to nature. División Global Santander Universidades ..... 70 04.2 Interview with José Antonio Villasante ............................................................. 77 05 Forum ................................................................................................................. 80 06 News ................................................................................................................... 84 Notebooks of the Fundación General CSIC | Nº 9 | LYCHNOS | 3 01 The Biodiversity Crisis 01 THE BIODIVERSITY CRISIS |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| The Biodiversity Crisis: scientific and political challenges For the first time in the history of the planet, one species (ours) is able to alter the global natural balance and cause a new mass extinction. This means governments need to take action with increasing urgency, and the international scientific community needs to be able to act in coordination. Rafael Zardoya Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC) n The Origin of Species, ditions end up becoming replacement of species, from events numerous ecological published in 1859, Darwin extinct. The fossil record gives time to time life on Earth has niches were left empty and gave an elegant demon- an account of the constant faced a number of planet- natural selection worked rap- I stration of how the astounding dynamic of replacement of wide mass extinction events. idly to restore the lost level of biological diversity that sur- ancestor species by better According to the fossil record, diversity. However, the new rounds us and of which we adapted descendents over since the Cambrian, 542 mil- dominant groups (in terms of are a part is constantly the course of the planet’s his- lion years ago, there have diversity) do not have to be – renewed by the evolution of tory. Indeed, it is easy to been at least five mass extinc- and in fact, are not usually– new species from existing understand that the species tions. The most recent, and those that dominated before ones. Acting at the level of that coexist with us today are biggest (although the figures the catastrophe. Everyone populations, natural selection just a small fraction of those are not conclusive, some knows that at the end of the is the driving force of evolution that have inhabited the Earth authors calculate that approx- Cretaceous, 65 million years as it determines which spe- over its history, to the extent imately 96% of marine spe- ago, an asteroid impact cies are best adapted to par- that it is calculated that 98% cies and 70% of terrestrial caused the disappearance of ticular environmental condi- of all species known to sci- species disappeared) was in the dinosaurs, within the ter- tions. Those unable to survive ence are extinct. Apart from the Permian, 251 million years restrial vertebrates, and paved optimally in the prevailing con- this continuous gradual ago. After each of these the way for the mammals and 6 | LYCHNOS | Nº 9 | Notebooks of the Fundación General CSIC |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| THE BIODIVERSITY CRISIS 01 Rafael Zardoya edge of natural history, evolu- Rafael Zardoya is a CSIC research professor at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias tionary biology, genetics, Naturales [National Museum of Natural Sciences] in Madrid. He has a PhD in ecology, and the social sci- Biology from the Madrid Complutense University (1994) and was a postdoctoral ences. Governments need to researcher at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, under the act with increasing urgency, supervision of Axel Meyer from 1995 to 1997. Since 1999 he has worked at the MNCN-CSIC on the study of molecular markers of phylogenetic relationships in the international scientific diverse taxonomic groups and the evolutionary mechanisms involved in the community needs to be able generation of biological diversity. He is a member of the editorial board of the to work in coordination and Journal of Molecular Evolution, Systematic Biology, Mitochondrial DNA, BMC focus its efforts on under- Bioinformatics, and Animal Biology and Conservation. He is currently on the standing the causes, dimen- DIVERSITAS bioGENESIS international committee and has held various positions of responsibility in the CSIC, being coordinator of the Natural sions and consequences of Resources Area from 2008 to 2012. global biodiversity loss. Inter- Rafael Zardoya. national programmes, such as DIVERSITAS (http://www. diversitas-international.org/), birds to exploit the opportun- growth and human “well- ping the “sixth great extinc- aim to make this coordination ity to diversify. being” have been recklessly tion” requires, first of all, well a reality. The organisation’s based on a mistaken view of grounded knowledge of cur- 2012 Strategic Plan identifies Now, for the first time in the nature as an inexhaustible rent biodiversity, its function, four major scientific chal- history of the planet one spe- source of resources. This has and the causes and conse- lenges we face in the immedi- cies (ours) has the ability to led to its over-exploitation and quences of its loss. Secondly, ate future: alter the natural balance on a a blind (but irrational) faith in this knowledge needs to be global scale and cause a new our species’ capacity to invent used as the launch pad from 1) Identifying critical changes mass extinction (at present, our way out of our difficulties. which to make society aware in biodiversity which are around 200 species are dis- Human activity has such an of the problem and drive the harmful and threaten it and appearing a day, which is impact on the planet that it political measures necessary produce the knowledge 1,000 times the natural extinc- has gone from being local to internationally to adapt to and necessary to avoid, limit or tion rate). Technological affecting the global cycles of mitigate biodiversity loss. mitigate them. The aim is to progress has allowed the the elements, water, the cli- investigate, through obser- human population to grow at mate and biodiversity. For Scientific challenges vations, experiments and an unprecedented rate. It is example, so far this year We are at a critical moment modelling, the dynamics of estimated that the world’s