Person: Raggio Quílez, José
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First Name
José
Last Name
Raggio Quílez
Affiliation
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Faculty / Institute
Farmacia
Department
Farmacología, Farmacognosia y Botánica
Area
Botánica
Identifiers
13 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 10 of 13
Item Recent Warming and Cooling in the Antarctic Peninsula Region has Rapid and Large Effects on Lichen Vegetation(Scientific Reports, 2017) Navarro, Francisco; Ramos, Miguel; Pablo, Miguel Angel De; Blanquer, José Manuel; Valladares, Fernando; García Sancho, Leopoldo; Pintado Valverde, Ana; Raggio Quílez, José; Green, Thomas George AllanThe Antarctic Peninsula has had a globally large increase in mean annual temperature from the 1951 to 1998 followed by a decline that still continues. The challenge is now to unveil whether these recent, complex and somewhat unexpected climatic changes are biologically relevant. We were able to do this by determining the growth of six lichen species on recently deglaciated surfaces over the last 24 years. Between 1991 and 2002, when mean summer temperature (MST) rose by 0.42 °C, five of the six species responded with increased growth. MST declined by 0.58 °C between 2002 and 2015 with most species showing a fall in growth rate and two of which showed a collapse with the loss of large individuals due to a combination of increased snow fall and longer snow cover duration. Increased precipitation can, counter-intuitively, have major negative effects when it falls as snow at cooler temperatures. The recent Antarctic cooling is having easily detectable and deleterious impacts on slow growing and highly stress-tolerant crustose lichens, which are comparable in extent and dynamics, and reverses the gains observed over the previous decades of exceptional warming.Item Whole Lichen Thalli Survive Exposure to Space Conditions: Results of Lithopanspermia Experiment with Aspicilia fruticulosa(Astrobiology, 2011) Raggio Quílez, José; Pintado Valverde, Ana; Ascaso, C.; De La Torre, R.; De Los Ríos, A.; Wierzchos, J.; Horneck, G.; García Sancho, LeopoldoThe Lithopanspermia space experiment was launched in 2007 with the European Biopan facility for a 10-day spaceflight on board a Russian Foton retrievable satellite. Lithopanspermia included for the first time the vagrant lichen species Aspicilia fruticulosa from Guadalajara steppic highlands (Central Spain), as well as other lichen species. During spaceflight, the samples were exposed to selected space conditions, that is, the space vacuum, cosmic radiation, and different spectral ranges of solar radiation (λ ≥ 110, ≥200, ≥290, or ≥400 nm, respectively). After retrieval, the algal and fungal metabolic integrity of the samples were evaluated in terms of chlorophyll a fluorescence, ultrastructure, and CO2 exchange rates. Whereas the space vacuum and cosmic radiation did not impair the metabolic activity of the lichens, solar electromagnetic radiation, especially in the wavelength range between 100 and 200 nm, caused reduced chlorophyll a yield fluorescence; however, there was a complete recovery after 72 h of reactivation. All samples showed positive rates of net photosynthesis and dark respiration in the gas exchange experiment. Although the ultrastructure of all flight samples showed some probable stress-induced changes (such as the presence of electron-dense bodies in cytoplasmic vacuoles and between the chloroplast thylakoids in photobiont cells as well as in cytoplasmic vacuoles of the mycobiont cells), we concluded that A. fruticulosa was capable of repairing all space-induced damage. Due to size limitations within the Lithopanspermia hardware, the possibility for replication on the sun-exposed samples was limited, and these first results on the resistance of the lichen symbiosis A. fruticulosa to space conditions and, in particular, on the spectral effectiveness of solar extraterrestrial radiation must be considered preliminary. Further testing in space and under space-simulated conditions will be required. Results of this study indicate that the quest to discern the limits of lichen symbiosis resistance to extreme environmental conditions remains openItem Metabolic activity duration can be effectively predicted from macroclimatic data for biological soil crust habitats across Europe(Geoderma, 2017) Raggio Quílez, José; Green, Thomas George Allan; García Sancho, Leopoldo; Pintado Valverde, Ana; Colesie, Claudia; Weber, Bettina; Büdel, BurkhardBiological soil crusts (BSC) perform several important environmental functions such as soil erosion prevention, soil nutrient enrichment through photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation, and are receiving growing interest due to their importance in some changing habitats with soils under degradation risk. Primary producers within BSC (cyanobacteria, lichens, algae and bryophytes) are all poikilohydric and active only when wet, meaning that knowledge of the period of metabolic activity is essential to understand growth and adaptation to environment. Finding links with macroclimatic factors would allow not only prediction of activity but also the effects of any climate change over these communities. Metabolic activity and microclimate of BSC at four sites across Europe with different soils from semi-arid (Almeria, SE Spain) to alpine (Austria) was monitored during one year using a chlorophyll fluorometer. Local climatic data were also recorded. Mean monthly activity of crust within each site were strongly linked irrespective of crust type whilst, using the data from all sites, highly significant linear relationships (mean monthly values) were found for activity with incident light, air temperature and air relative humidity, and a nonlinear response to rainfall saturating at about 40 mm per month. Air relative humidity and air temperature were the best predictors of metabolic activity duration. The links observed are all highly significant allowing climate data to be used to model activity and to gain inferences about the effects of climate change over BSC communities, soil structure and fertility. Linear relationships mean that small changes in the environment will not produce massive alterations in activity. BSC also appear to behave as a single functional group, which is helpful when proposing general management policies for soil ecosystems protection.Item Photosynthetic rate and thallus size are not related in alpine yellow-green Rhizocarpon crustose lichens: Implications for lichenometry and growth(Geomorphology, 2018) Raggio Quílez, José; Green, Thomas George Allan; García Sancho, Leopoldo; Pintado Valverde, AnaLichenometry, first proposed at the beginning of the XXth century, is a technique that uses growth rates of saxicolous crustose lichens to date exposed surfaces over an age range of 500 years from present. Despite of the wide use of the methodology, it has been strongly criticized by several authors who consider that biological aspects involved in growth rates of lichens used are not sufficiently considered and that this will contribute to uncertainty in the final surface dating. The assumption, important for direct lichenometric measurements, that crustose lichens have constant growth rates through all their life span, is controversial, with some works pointing to a change in growth rate with thallus size in yellow-green Rhizocarpon sp. samples, the most widely lichens used for surface dating. This change in growth rate with size would contribute to inaccuracy in dating. In this work, we contribute to the discussion with a novel approach in which we measure several physiological parameters linked to carbon gain in 42 Rhizocarpon sp. samples of different sizes collected in the same locality. We found no significant relationship between thallus photosynthetic rate and thallus size indicating that possible growth rate variations over Rhizocarpon life span are not linked to carbon gain. The experiment performed provides a new data set to include in lichenometric modelling with the aim to obtain a better understanding of crustose lichens biology before attempting more feasible and accurate surface dating strategies. Measurements of length of activity periods and carbon allocation in Rhizocarpon are recommended to achieve future improvements in this direction.Item Extreme phenotypic variation in Cetraria aculeata (lichenized Ascomycota): adaptation or incidental modification?(Annals of Botany, 2012) Pérez-Ortega, Sergio; Fernández-Mendoza, Fernando; Raggio Quílez, José; Vivas, Mercedes; Ascaso, Carmen; García Sancho, Leopoldo; Printzen, Christian; Ríos, Asunción de losPhenotypic variability is a successful strategy in lichens for colonizing different habitats. Vagrancy has been reported as a specific adaptation for lichens living in steppe habitats around the world. Among the facultatively vagrant species, the cosmopolitan Cetraria aculeata apparently forms extremely modified vagrant thalli in steppe habitats of Central Spain. The aim of this study was to investigate whether these changes are phenotypic plasticity (a single genotype producing different phenotypes), by characterizing the anatomical and ultrastructural changes observed in vagrant morphs, and measuring differences in ecophysiological performance. Methods Specimens of vagrant and attached populations of C. aculeata were collected on the steppes of Central Spain. The fungal internal transcribed spacer (ITS), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPD) and the large sub-unit of the mitochondrial ribosomal DNA (mtLSUm), and the algal ITS and actin were studied within a population genetics framework. Semi-thin and ultrathin sections were analysed by means of optical, scanning electron and transmission electron microscopy. Gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence were used to compare the physiological performance of both morphs. Key Results and Conclusions Vagrant and attached morphs share multilocus haplotypes which may indicate that they belong to the same species in spite of their completely different anatomy. However, differentiation tests suggested that vagrant specimens do not represent a random sub-set of the surrounding population. The morphological differences were related to anatomical and ultrastructural differences. Large intercalary growth rates of thalli after the loss of the basal–apical thallus polarity may be the cause of the increased growth shown by vagrant specimens. The anatomical and morphological changes lead to greater duration of ecophysiological activity in vagrant specimens. Although the anatomical and physiological changes could be chance effects, the genetic differentiation between vagrant and attached sub-populations and the higher biomass of the former show fitness effects and adaptation to dry environmental conditions in steppe habitats.Item HPLC isolation of antioxidant constituents from Xanthoparmelia spp(Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, 2010) Amo De Paz, Guillermo; Raggio Quílez, José; Gómez-Serranillos Cuadrado, María Pilar; Palomino Ruiz-Poveda, Olga María; González Burgos, Elena María; Carretero Accame, María Emilia; Crespo De Las Casas, Ana MaríaA chromatographic method is described for the purification and characterization of secondary lichen substances with biological activity. A simple reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method with gradient elution has been developed that allows the determination and isolation of salazinic, usnic and stictic acids from lichen samples in a single run and the quantification of every acid in the tested extracts. The antioxidant activity of both the isolated compounds and the respective lichen belonging to Xanthoparmelia genus was determined by the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) assay; their effect as free radical scavengers, effect on cell survival by the 3(4,5-dimethyltiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium reduction assay and 2′,7′-dichlorofluorescin diacetate method were tested on U373 MG human astrocytome cell line. Both lichens extracts and all isolated compounds protected U373 MG cells from hydrogen peroxide-induced damage, suggesting that they could act as antioxidant agents in those neurodegenerative disorders associated with oxidative damage, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.Item Relative humidity predominantly determines long‐term biocrust‐forming lichen cover in drylands under climate change(Journal of Ecology, 2020) Baldauf, Selina; Porada, Philipp; Maestre, Fernando T.; Tietjen, Britta; Raggio Quílez, José; Shurong ZhouAbstract Manipulative experiments typically show a decrease in dryland biocrust cover and altered species composition under climate change. Biocrust-forming lichens, such as the globally distributed Diploschistes diacapsis, are particularly affected and show a decrease in cover with simulated climate change. However, the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood, and long-term interacting effects of different drivers are largely unknown due to the short-term nature of the experimental studies conducted so far. We addressed this gap and successfully parameterised a process-based model for D. diacapsis to quantify how changing atmospheric CO2, temperature, rainfall amount and relative humidity affect its photosynthetic activity and cover. We also mimicked a long-term manipulative climate change experiment to understand the mechanisms underlying observed patterns in the field. The model reproduced observed experimental findings: warming reduced lichen cover, whereas less rainfall had no effect on lichen performance. This warming effect was caused by the associated decrease in relative humidity and non-rainfall water inputs, which are major water sources for biocrust-forming lichens. Warming alone, however, increased cover because higher temperatures promoted photosynthesis during early morning hours with high lichen activity. When combined, climate variables showed non-additive effects on lichen cover, and effects of increased CO2 levelled off with decreasing levels of relative humidity. Synthesis. Our results show that a decrease in relative humidity, rather than an increase in temperature, may be the key factor for the survival of the lichen D. diacapsis under climate change and that effects of increased CO2 levels might be offset by a reduction in non-rainfall water inputs in the future. Because of a global trend towards warmer and drier air and the widespread global distribution of D. diacapsis, this will affect lichen-dominated dryland biocrust communities and their role in regulating ecosystem functions worldwide.Item High nitrogen contribution by Gunnera magellanica and nitrogen transfer by mycorrhizas drive an extraordinarily fast primary succession in sub‐Antarctic Chile(New Phytologist, 2019) Benavent González, Alberto; Raggio Quílez, José; Villagra, Johana ; Pintado Valverde, Ana; Blanquer, José Manuel ; Rozzi, Ricardo ; Green, Thomas George Allan; García Sancho, LeopoldoChronosequences at the forefront of retreating glaciers provide information about colonization rates of bare surfaces. In the northern hemisphere, forest development can take centuries, with rates often limited by low nutrient availability. By contrast, in front of the retreating Pia Glacier (Tierra del Fuego, Chile), a Nothofagus forest is in place after only 34 yr of development, while total soil nitrogen (N) increased from near zero to 1.5%, suggesting a strong input of this nutrient. We measured N-fixation rates, carbon fluxes, leaf N and phosphorus contents and leaf δ15N in the dominant plants, including the herb Gunnera magellanica, which is endosymbiotically associated with a cyanobacterium, in order to investigate the role of N-fixing and mycorrhizal symbionts in N-budgets during successional transition. G. magellanica presented some of the highest nitrogenase activities yet reported (potential maximal contribution of 300 kg N ha−1 yr−1). Foliar δ15N results support the framework of a highly efficient N-uptake and transfer system based on mycorrhizas, with c. 80% of N taken up by the mycorrhizas potentially transferred to the host plant. Our results suggest the symbiosis of G. magellanica with cyanobacteria, and trees and shrubs with mycorrhizas, to be the key processes driving this rapid successioncyanobacteriaItem Warming reduces the cover, richness and evenness of lichen‐dominated biocrusts but promotes moss growth: insights from an 8 yr experiment(New Phytologist, 2018) Ladrón de Guevara, Mónica; Gozalo, Beatriz; Lafuente, Angela; Prieto, María; Maestre, Fernando T.; Raggio Quílez, JoséSummary Despite the important role that biocrust communities play in maintaining ecosystem structure and functioning in drylands world-wide, few studies have evaluated how climate change will affect them. Using data from an 8-yr-old manipulative field experiment located in central Spain, we evaluated how warming, rainfall exclusion and their combination affected the dynamics of biocrust communities in areas that initially had low (< 20%, LIBC plots) and high (> 50%, HIBC plots) biocrust cover. Warming reduced the richness (35 ± 6%), diversity (25 ± 8%) and cover (82 ± 5%) of biocrusts in HIBC plots. The presence and abundance of mosses increased with warming through time in these plots, although their growth rate was much lower than the rate of lichen death, resulting in a net loss of biocrust cover. On average, warming caused a decrease in the abundance (64 ± 7%) and presence (38 ± 24%) of species in the HIBC plots. Over time, lichens and mosses colonized the LIBC plots, but this process was hampered by warming in the case of lichens. The observed reductions in the cover and diversity of lichen-dominated biocrusts with warming will lessen the capacity of drylands such as that studied here to sequester atmospheric CO2 and to provide other key ecosystem services associated to these communities.Item Environmental determinants of biocrust carbon fluxes across Europe: possibilities for a functional type approach(Plant and Soil, 2018) Büdel, Burkhard; Raggio Quílez, José; Green, Thomas George Allan; Pintado Valverde, Ana; García Sancho, LeopoldoBackground and aims Due to the well-known importance of biocrusts for several ecosystem properties linked to soil functionality, we aim to go deeper into the physiological performance of biocrusts components. Possible functional convergences in the physiology of biocrust constituents would facilitate the understanding of both species and genus distributional patterns and improve the possibility of modelling their response to climate change. Methods We measured gas exchange in the laboratory under controlled conditions of lichen- and moss-dominated biocrusts from four environmentally different locations in Europe. Field data were used to determine the natural hydration sources that drive metabolic activity of biocrusts. Results Our results show different activity drivers at the four sites. Within site analyses showed similar C fixation for the different crust types in the three sites without hydric stress whilst light use related parameters and respiration at 15 °C were similar in the between sites analyses. There were significant differences in water relations between the biocrusts types, with moss-dominated crusts showing higher maximum and optimum water contents. Conclusions The functional type approach for biocrusts can be justified from a physiological perspective when similar values are found in the within and between site analyses, the latter indicating habitat independent adaptation patterns. Our multi-site analyses for biocrusts functional performance provide comparisons of C fluxes and water relations in the plant-soil interface that will help to understand the adaptation ability of these communities to possible environmental changes.