Mexical Shrubland

Valiente‐Banuet, Alfonso; Verdú, Miguel

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-409548-9.12041-x

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 45 publications

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“…Agave potatorum is an endemic species, restricted to the Sierra Madre del Sur, Tehuaca ´n Valley in the state of Puebla, and part of the state of Oaxaca mountains, in Mexico [20]. It is found in evergreen sclerophyllous vegetation named Mexical [21], and in the oak and pine forest grassy slopes at an elevation between 1,760 to 2,300 m [2,18]. It is a semelparous, monocarpic species that grows slowly (compared to A. tequilana and A. angustifolia, for instance).…”

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confidence: 99%

Differences in the genomic diversity, structure, and inbreeding patterns in wild and managed populations of Agave potatorum Zucc. used in the production of Tobalá mezcal in Southern Mexico

Ruiz Mondragón,

Klimova,

Aguirre-Planter

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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Agave potatorum Zucc. locally known as Tobalá, is an important species for mezcal production. It is a perennial species that takes 10 to 15 years to reach reproductive age. Because of high demand of Tobalá mezcal and the slow maturation of the plants, its wild populations have been under intense anthropogenic pressure. The main objective of this study was to estimate the genome-wide diversity in A. potatorum and determine if the type of management has had any effect on its diversity, inbreeding and structure. We analyzed 174 individuals (105 wild, 42 cultivated and 27 from nurseries) from 34 sites with a reduced representation genomic method (ddRADseq), using 14,875 SNPs. The diversity measured as expected heterozygosity was higher in the nursery and wild plants than in cultivated samples. We did not find private alleles in the cultivated and nursery plants, which indicates that the individuals under management recently derived from wild populations, which was supported by higher gene flow estimated from wild populations to the managed plants. We found low but positive levels of inbreeding (FIS = 0.082), probably related to isolation of the populations. We detected low genetic differentiation among populations (FST = 0.0796), with positive and significant isolation by distance. The population genetic structure in the species seems to be related to elevation and ecology, with higher gene flow among populations in less fragmented areas. We detected an outlier locus related to the recognition of pollen, which is also relevant to self-incompatibility protein (SI). Due to seed harvest and long generation time, the loss of diversity in A. potatorum has been gradual and artificial selection and incipient management have not yet caused drastic differences between cultivated and wild plants. Also, we described an agroecological alternative to the uncontrolled extraction of wild individuals.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in the genomic diversity, structure, and inbreeding patterns in wild and managed populations of Agave potatorum Zucc. used in the production of Tobalá mezcal in Southern Mexico

Ruiz Mondragón,

Klimova,

Aguirre-Planter

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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Changes in the structure and composition of the ‘Mexical’ scrubland bee community along an elevational gradient

et al. 2021

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‘Mexical’ scrubland is a sclerophyllous evergreen Mediterranean-like vegetation occurring in the leeward slopes of the main Mexican mountain ranges, under tropical climate. This biome occupies an elevational range approximately from 1900 to 2600 meters above sea level, which frequently is the upper-most part of the mountains range. This puts it at risk of extinction in a scenario of global warming in which an upward retraction of this type of vegetation is expected. The Mexical remains one of the least studied ecosystems in Mexico. For instance, nothing is known about pollinator fauna of this vegetation. Our main objective is to make a first insight into the taxonomic identity of the bee fauna that inhabits this biome, and to study how it is distributed along the elevational gradient that it occupies. Our results highlight that elevation gradient negatively affects bee species richness and that this relationship is strongly mediated by temperature. Bee abundance had no significant pattern along elevational gradient, but shows a significant relationship with flower density. Interestingly, and contrary to previous works, we obtained a different pattern for bee richness and bee abundance. Bee community composition changed strongly along elevation gradient, mainly in relation to temperature and flower density. In a global warming scenario, as temperatures increases, species with cold preferences, occupying the highest part of the elevation gradient, are likely to suffer negative consequences (even extinction risk), if they are not flexible enough to adjust their physiology and/or some life-story traits to warmer conditions. Species occupying mid and lower elevations are likely to extend their range of elevational distribution towards higher ranges. This will foreseeably cause a new composition of species and a new scenario of interactions, the adjustment of which still leaves many unknowns to solve.

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Impacts of land cover change on the plant resources of an endangered pollinator

Gómez-Ruiz¹,

Lacher

Moreno-Talamantes³

et al. 2021

PeerJ

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One of the key drivers of pollinator declines is land cover change. We documented for the first time the impacts of over three decades of land cover change in Mexico on the plant resources of an endangered migratory pollinator, the Mexican long-nosed bat, Leptonycteris nivalis. This species is considered endangered under national and international criteria due to population declines over 50% in the past 10 years. Pregnant females of this bat species migrate every year following the blooms of Agave spp. from central Mexico to the southern United States; moving pollen over its 1,200 km long migratory corridor and pollinating distant populations of Agave spp. Increases in human populations density and agricultural expansion may be reducing agave habitat over time. The objective of our study is to understand the land cover change trends in the northern range of the bat and identify potential fragmentation patterns in the region. We analyzed changes that occurred in three vegetation types where agaves are found in five time periods 1985, 1993, 2002, 2007 and 2011. The area of the three vegetation types selected was reduced by using only the overlap with potential agave habitat created with ecological niche modeling algorithms to obtain the available agave habitat. We then calculated fragmentation metrics for each period. We found a significant portion of habitat lost mainly due to expansion in agriculture. The total number of patches increased after 1985. Only 9% of the available agave habitat in 2011 is inside the limits of protected areas. We recommend restoring agave populations in depleted areas to help prevent soil erosion and provide multiple socio-economic benefits for the region in the short term, and, in the long-term maintaining foraging resources for nectar-feeding bats.

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Mexical Shrubland

Cited by 3 publications

References 45 publications

Differences in the genomic diversity, structure, and inbreeding patterns in wild and managed populations of Agave potatorum Zucc. used in the production of Tobalá mezcal in Southern Mexico

Differences in the genomic diversity, structure, and inbreeding patterns in wild and managed populations of Agave potatorum Zucc. used in the production of Tobalá mezcal in Southern Mexico

Changes in the structure and composition of the ‘Mexical’ scrubland bee community along an elevational gradient

Impacts of land cover change on the plant resources of an endangered pollinator

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