Seventeen 'extinct' plant species back to conservation attention in Europe.

Seventeen European endemic plant species were considered extinct, but improved taxonomic and distribution knowledge as well as ex situ collecting activities brought them out of the extinct status. These species have now been reported into a conservation framework that may promote legal protection and in situ and ex situ conservation.

Correction: Pre-Holocene Origin for the Coronopus navasii Disjunction: Conservation Implications from Its Long Isolation.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0159484.].

Ornithophily for the nonspecialist: Differential pollination efficiency of the Macaronesian island paleoendemic Navaea phoenicea (Malvaceae) by generalist passerines.

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: A bird pollination syndrome exists in the Canary Islands archipelago across independent plant lineages despite the absence of specialist birds. The pollination efficiency of current floral visitors remains unknown for many plant species despite this being a fundamental factor in testing hypotheses about the origin of the syndrome. Here, we studied the components of pollination efficiency in the paleoendemic Navaea phoenicea, a species exhibiting conspicuous anatomical modifications associated with bird pollination. METHODS: We measured the components of the pollination efficiency (PE) of species foraging on flowers. The measured quantitative components were visitation frequency patterns to plants and individual flowers. The qualitative components were the contributions to the fitness of male and female functions (pollen removal and deposition and fruit set). KEY RESULTS: Pollination by warbler species was highly efficient, but visit frequency was low; conversely, Canarian chiffchaffs had high visit frequency and low efficiency. Overall PE was almost 0 for blue tits due to disruptive behavior. We also found insects acting as nectar robbers. CONCLUSIONS: Pollination efficiency of three of the four bird species visiting flowers of Navaea phoenicea may be high enough to maintain selective pressure on floral traits of a relict pollination syndrome. The behavior of these birds plays a crucial role in their pollination efficiency. Perching, by generalist passerines when visiting N. phoenicea flowers, is the most efficient habit. The frequency and PE of insect visits calls into question their role as legitimate visitors.

Pre-Holocene Origin for the Coronopus navasii Disjunction: Conservation Implications from Its Long Isolation.

Integration of unexpected discoveries about charismatic species can disrupt their well-established recovery plans, particularly when this requires coordinate actions among the different governments responsible. The Critically Endangered Coronopus navasii (Brassicaceae) was considered a restricted endemism to a few Mediterranean temporary ponds in a high mountain range of Southeast Spain, until a new group of populations were discovered 500 km North in 2006. Ten years after this finding, its management has not been accommodated due to limited information of the new populations and administrative inertia. In this study, DNA sequences and species distribution models are used to analyse the origin of the C. navasii disjunction as a preliminary step to reassess its recovery plan. Molecular results placed the disjunction during Miocene-Pleistocene (6.30-0.49 Mya, plastid DNA; 1.45-0.03 Mya, ribosomal DNA), which discards a putative human-mediated origin. In fact, the haplotype network and the low gene flow estimated between disjunct areas suggest long-term isolation. Dispersal is the most likely explanation for the disjunction as interpreted from the highly fragmented distribution projected to the past. Particularly, a northward dispersal from Southeast is proposed since C. navasii haplotype network is connected to the sister-group through the southern haplotype. Although the reassessment of C. navasii conservation status is more optimistic under the new extent of occurrence, its long-term survival may be compromised due to the: (1) natural fragmentation and rarity of the species habitat, (2) genetic isolation between the two disjunct areas, and (3) northward shift of suitable areas under future climate change scenarios. Several ex-situ and in-situ conservation measures are proposed for integrating Central East Spanish populations into the on-going recovery plan, which still only contemplates Southeast populations and therefore does not preserve the genetic structure and diversity of the species.

Detecting fragmentation extinction thresholds for forest understory plant species in peninsular Spain.

Ecological theory predicts that fragmentation aggravates the effects of habitat loss, yet empirical results show mixed evidences, which fail to support the theory instead reinforcing the primary importance of habitat loss. Fragmentation hypotheses have received much attention due to their potential implications for biodiversity conservation, however, animal studies have traditionally been their main focus. Here we assess variation in species sensitivity to forest amount and fragmentation and evaluate if fragmentation is related to extinction thresholds in forest understory herbs and ferns. Our expectation was that forest herbs would be more sensitive to fragmentation than ferns due to their lower dispersal capabilities. Using forest cover percentage and the proportion of this percentage occurring in the largest patch within UTM cells of 10-km resolution covering Peninsular Spain, we partitioned the effects of forest amount versus fragmentation and applied logistic regression to model occurrences of 16 species. For nine models showing robustness according to a set of quality criteria we subsequently defined two empirical fragmentation scenarios, minimum and maximum, and quantified species' sensitivity to forest contraction with no fragmentation, and to fragmentation under constant forest cover. We finally assessed how the extinction threshold of each species (the habitat amount below which it cannot persist) varies under no and maximum fragmentation. Consistent with their preference for forest habitats probability occurrences of all species decreased as forest cover contracted. On average, herbs did not show significant sensitivity to fragmentation whereas ferns were favored. In line with theory, fragmentation yielded higher extinction thresholds for two species. For the remaining species, fragmentation had either positive or non-significant effects. We interpret these differences as reflecting species-specific traits and conclude that although forest amount is of primary importance for the persistence of understory plants, to neglect the impact of fragmentation for some species can lead them to local extinction.