‘Conservation biology of the fragmented Mediterranean woodland: measurement of gene flow and diversity in species with differing reproductive systems’

Arndt Hampe, Daniel Ignacio Piñero Dalmau, Fernando Ojeda Copete, Francisco Rodríguez Sánchez, Juan Arroyo Marín, Laura Fernández Carrillo, Rafael González Albaladejo, Rocío Pérez Barrales, Susana Paula Juliá, Teodoro Marañón Arana.

This project will study the effects of fragmentation and isolation (population size, fragment size, degree of isolation, biodiversity components) on the genetic structure and diversity of plant populations in a historically fragmented setting. The study case takes in four common shrub species in the ?island-woods? of eastern Andalusia which exhibit contrasting reproductive and dispersal systems (Myrtus communis L., Pistacia lentiscus L., Quercus coccifera L. and Cistus salvifolius L.). This will elucidate how these factors influence real genetic exchange capacity at species and population level and allow targeted conservation proposals to be drawn up.