Papers by Blanca L Figueroa-Rangel
Journal of South American Earth Sciences, 2022
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts, May 1, 2013
The Holocene, 2021
Seasonal dry tropical forest (STDF) is a widespread vegetation type in western Mexico. Generally,... more Seasonal dry tropical forest (STDF) is a widespread vegetation type in western Mexico. Generally, this type of forest develops in semihumid habitats where lacustrine basins are scarce, preventing documentation of the vegetation history and forest dynamics using a paleoecological approach. Here, we present a palynological record from the Santa Maria del Oro crater lake, located within the distribution area of the STDF and the adjacent dry oak forest which gives insight into the changes in diversity and human impact at this tropical site. Pollen data, in combination with geochemical analysis and microcharcoal data from a lacustrine sequence, are used to discuss vegetation change and diversity in the plant assemblages related to drought or anthropogenic activity over the last 5000 years. Our results show three distinct periods of drought in the basin, from 4200 to 3850, 3100 to 2300, 1570 to 1100 and 300 cal year BP, with changes in vegetation composition mainly related to a decrease i...
Revista de Biología Tropical, 2021
Introduction: Tree ferns are significant components of temperate, tropical and subtropical forest... more Introduction: Tree ferns are significant components of temperate, tropical and subtropical forests, contributing to shape complex forest stand structures. Objectives: 1) to describe the population structure of Cyathea costaricensis in a remnant cloud forest of West-central Mexico; 2) to characterize and relate the floristic composition and the structure of the most important tree species associated to the C. costaricensis population and; 3) to describe the environment where C. costaricensis occurs. Methods: We estimated the Importance Value Index (IVI) to select the most important canopy-dominant species associated to C. costaricensis; we constructed height and Diameter at Breast Height (DBH) frequency distributions for those selected species according to IVI as well as for C. costaricensis population; we computed the asymmetry of the frequency distributions through the coefficient of skewness and the probability density function via the Kernel density estimation. We tested for diff...
Here, we use 30 long-term, high-resolution palaeoecological records from Mexico, Central and Sout... more Here, we use 30 long-term, high-resolution palaeoecological records from Mexico, Central and South America to address two hypotheses regarding possible drivers of resilience in tropical forests as measured in terms of recovery rates from previous disturbances. First, we hypothesize that faster recovery rates are associated with regions of higher biodiversity, as suggested by the insurance hypothesis. And second, that resilience is due to intrinsic abiotic factors that are location specific, thus regions presently displaying resilience in terms of persistence to current climatic disturbances should also show higher recovery rates in the past. To test these hypotheses, we applied a threshold approach to identify past disturbances to forests within each sequence. We then compared the recovery rates to these events with pollen richness before the event. We also compared recovery rates of each site with a measure of present resilience in the region as demonstrated by measuring global vegetation persistence to climatic perturbations using satellite imagery. Preliminary results indeed show a positive relationship between pre-disturbance taxonomic richness and faster recovery rates. However, there is less evidence to support the concept that resilience is intrinsic to a region; patterns of resilience apparent in ecosystems presently are not necessarily conservative through time.
Una mirada al conocimiento de los ecosistemas de México expone una revisión de los ecosistemas de... more Una mirada al conocimiento de los ecosistemas de México expone una revisión de los ecosistemas de nuestro país desde esta perspectiva sistémica, lo cual hace al libro aún más valioso, pues contrasta con la manera tradicional de describir y analizar la gran riqueza biológica que posee nuestro país. En esta obra no solo se incluye un capítulo completo sobre el impacto de las actividades humanas en la biodiversidad y en los ecosistemas, sino además otro sobre las consecuencias que esta pérdida de biodiversidad está teniendo en los ecosistemas y sus servicios.
The Holocene and Anthropocene Environmental History of Mexico, 2019
Two ancient cloud forests in the Mexican Pacific were reconstructed to reveal signals of past eco... more Two ancient cloud forests in the Mexican Pacific were reconstructed to reveal signals of past ecosystem responses to climate anomalies during the Late Holocene, Little Ice Age (~AD 1350–1850) and Medieval Climate Anomaly (~AD 800–1350). Applying palaeoecological techniques, two organic sediment cores were extracted from forest hollows: one from the cloud forest of the Acer Forest State Park (AFSP) and one from the Sierra de Manantlan Biosphere Reserve (SMBR), both in the state of Jalisco, Mexico.
Forest succession was studied in sub-tropical high-altitude, Quercus-dominated forest in west-cen... more Forest succession was studied in sub-tropical high-altitude, Quercus-dominated forest in west-central Mexico in order to address the following research questions: (1) How do successional trajectories progress in three contrasting floristic zones? (2) Which is the magnitude of successional rate of change at different time-scales? (3) What are the major environmental drivers contributing to the observed patterns of forest succession? Data was derived from 86 non-managed permanent plots, 500 m2 each, established along a 10 km floristic gradient, ranging from xeric to mesic sites. In portraying successional trajectories over time and to measure the magnitude of rate of change in three floristic zones, Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) was developed. In order to represent the most significant environmental drivers on patterns of successional trajectories and successional rate of change, we used generalized linear models with gaussian error. Results showed that successional trajecto...
Biology Letters, 2020
Here, we use 30 long-term, high-resolution palaeoecological records from Mexico, Central and Sout... more Here, we use 30 long-term, high-resolution palaeoecological records from Mexico, Central and South America to address two hypotheses regarding possible drivers of resilience in tropical forests as measured in terms of recovery rates from previous disturbances. First, we hypothesize that faster recovery rates are associated with regions of higher biodiversity, as suggested by the insurance hypothesis. And second, that resilience is due to intrinsic abiotic factors that are location specific, thus regions presently displaying resilience in terms of persistence to current climatic disturbances should also show higher recovery rates in the past. To test these hypotheses, we applied a threshold approach to identify past disturbances to forests within each sequence. We then compared the recovery rates to these events with pollen richness before the event. We also compared recovery rates of each site with a measure of present resilience in the region as demonstrated by measuring global veg...
Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad, 2019
The sedimentary record from alpine Lake La Luna provided evidences of the vegetation dynamics and... more The sedimentary record from alpine Lake La Luna provided evidences of the vegetation dynamics and climate change during the last 6000 cal yr BP (calibrated years before present). A combination of analyses, including palynology, geochemistry and charcoal, allow inferring changes in the plants communities and the environment. The record starts with the establishment of alpine grasslands. According to the pollen spectra, coniferous and Quercus forests developed between 6000 and 4700 cal yr BP associated to humid conditions and low fire forests frequency events. By 4700 to 2000 cal yr BP drier environments with increases in fires frequency and high abundance of Pinus pollen is recorded. During the last 2000 cal yr BP changes in vegetation includes increases in Abies and reduction in Pinus pollen that point to humid environmental conditions during the Classic (1-650 AD), whereas during the Epiclassic (650-950 AD) and the Medieval Anomaly (950 a 1300 AD) the Pinus pollen increased suggesting drier conditions. Cold climates with reduced frequency of fires events are inferred during the Little Ice Age (1300-1850 AD). Presence of maize pollen in the pollen record gives evidence human activities in the area since 4680 cal yr BP.
Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad, 2018
Variación ambiental y composición florística de especies arbóreas en un bosque húmedo de montaña ... more Variación ambiental y composición florística de especies arbóreas en un bosque húmedo de montaña del occidente de México Environmental variation and floristic composition of tree species in a humid mountain forest in western Mexico
Polibotánica, 2018
RESUMEN: Con el objetivo de cuantificar los cambios espacio-temporales de atributos estructurales... more RESUMEN: Con el objetivo de cuantificar los cambios espacio-temporales de atributos estructurales y de composición florística de especies árboreas del bosque mesófilo de montaña en el occidente de México, se establecieron ocho parcelas permanentes de 2 500 m 2 cada una. En ellas se registraron variables estructurales (densidad, frecuencia, área basal y valor de importancia relativo-VIR) y de composición florística (riqueza de especies, géneros y familias) en tres tiempos diferentes: primer censo en 1998 (C1); segundo censo en 2004 (C2) y tercer censo en 2010 (C3). Los resultados indican que existen diferencias significativas, tanto para las variables estructurales como en la composición de especies, géneros y familias en el espacio (entre parcelas) y el tiempo (entre censos). La densidad incrementó de 1190 a 1239 individuos ha-1 entre el C1 y C2 y disminuyó a 1164 en el C3. El área basal promedio por ha fue de 36.15, 36.19 y 37.53 m 2 para los C1, C2 y C3, respectivamente. Styrax radians, Siparuna thecaphora y Conostegia xalapensis tuvieron una frecuencia del 100%. Styrax radians registró los valores más altos de VIR en los tres censos junto con Ficus aurea y Quercus iltisii. Los cambios espacio-temporales en estructura y composición florística estuvieron asociados con características biológicas propias de cada especie (germinación y dispersión) y con perturbaciones antrópicas como ganadería, agricultura de subsistencia, caída de árboles, corta clandestina de madera y cambio de uso del suelo.
Wetlands, 2018
Mangrove ecosystems are important sources of goods and services to people, supporting ecological,... more Mangrove ecosystems are important sources of goods and services to people, supporting ecological, biological, social and economic values. Nevertheless the scale of human-impact on mangroves in many countries has increased dramatically over the past years. Understanding their structure and plant composition is decisive for a proper design of conservation and management strategies, therefore we assessed patterns of floristic composition and structure together with their spatial and temporal environmental variability. Sixty-five 100 m 2 permanent plots were established across the study area in order to cover the full range of structural and floristic variation. We sampled interstitial water properties (salinity, total dissolved solid, pH, oxygen dissolved and temperature) during the dry and the wet seasons. We ran non-metric multidimensional scaling ordinations (NMDS) to discern both floristic composition and structural changes related to interstitial water. We also ran multiple linear regression analyses, to determine the relationship between interstitial water with stand structural variables. Results showed a floristic gradient related to salinity while structure indicated by stand density and tree sizes, were explained primarily by salinity along the whole year; oxygen dissolved and pH were also significant in both wet and dry season while temperature was only important in the dry season.
Regional Environmental Change, 2018
This study is an important contribution to the International Long-term Ecological Research Networ... more This study is an important contribution to the International Long-term Ecological Research Network (ILTER), because it presents the local responses of soil and plant composition to global and regional climatic oscillations of the last millennia in Mexico. Mountain forests are ecosystems that have been constantly threatened by both anthropogenic and climate disturbances, mainly over the Late Holocene. By using palaeoecological techniques with fossil pollen and geochemical elements as proxies, this study incorporates the relationship of trees, herbs and epiphytes with dry and humid climate events. High-temporal resolution in the chronologies allowed the assessment of vegetation changes (every~30 years) and soil geochemical elements in three forests located close (< 8 km) to each other. Our results showed that pine forest contracted along the dry periods of the Little Ice Age (AD 1350-1850), the Medieval Climate Anomaly (AD 800 to 1200) and the Late Classic Drought (AD 600 to 800). However, it expanded in the humid period (AD 1200 to 1350). Cloud forest was the most susceptible ecosystem to the above climate anomalies; trees contracted in periods of aridity and expanded in humid periods. The signature for the transitional forest was confounding: trees increased partially in both dry and humid periods with a well-correlated decrease in epiphytes. Soil losses were common in dry periods while fires increased along the last~300 years.
Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad, 2018
1580 años de impacto humano y cambio climático en la dinámica del bosque de Pinus-Quercus-Abies e... more 1580 años de impacto humano y cambio climático en la dinámica del bosque de Pinus-Quercus-Abies en el centro-occidente de México 1580 years of human impact and climate change on the dynamics of a Pinus-Quercus-Abies forest in west-central Mexico
CIBA Revista Iberoamericana de las Ciencias Biológicas y Agropecuarias, 2017
Los modelos como herramientas de simulación constituyen un medio para entender la complejidad de ... more Los modelos como herramientas de simulación constituyen un medio para entender la complejidad de un determinado sistema; los modelos se consideran elementos disponibles y necesarios para entender las hipótesis en sus procesos. Un modelo permite generar situaciones reales y complejas con base en sistemas de simulación que admiten tomar decisiones de cualquier índole. Este trabajo presenta, con apoyo del software VENSIM, escenarios propicios para la producción de caña de azúcar en el Valle El Grullo-Autlán, así como la validación del mismo con apoyo del software SPSS (versión 15.0). Los resultados muestran la manera como los factores suelo y precipitación repercutirán directamente y a futuro en la producción de caña por hectárea en el Valle El Grullo-Autlán. En este caso, el modelo cuadrático y el cúbico fueron estadísticamente significativos para el caso de la precipitación, no así la temperatura, lo que se suma al historial de temperaturas de los últimos 14 años en la región, el cua...
Plant Ecology, 2017
The recovery of vegetation cover is a process that has important implications for the conservatio... more The recovery of vegetation cover is a process that has important implications for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Generally, the recovery of vegetation cover is documented over large areas using remote sensing, and it is often assumed that ecosystem properties and processes recover along with remotely sensed canopy cover. Here we analyze and compare the structure, composition, and diversity of trees and shrubs among plots established in a stratified random sampling design over four remotely sensed canopy cover change (CCC) categories defined according to a gradient in the percent of canopy cover. Plots were located in the Lake Cuitzeo basin (Mexico), where canopy recovery associated with agricultural abandonment has occurred in recent decades (1975-2000). We found that diversity measures, basal area, tree and shrub density, groundtruthed canopy cover, and mean plant height increased with increasing CCC category. However, Shannon index (H 0) was lower in the CCC category with the most closed canopy cover category than in plots apparently not affected by agriculture. Furthermore, ordination analyses showed that composition of dominant species were not associated with CCC categories. Our results suggest that canopy closure in our study area is not associated with the recovery of species diversity, and does not result in similar species dominance as in sites not affected by agriculture.
Brittonia, 2017
Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by The New York Botani... more Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by The New York Botanical Garden. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com".
CIBA Revista Iberoamericana de las Ciencias Biológicas y Agropecuarias, 2017
Las actividades campesinas en el valle de El Grullo-Autlán son de gran importancia para el progre... more Las actividades campesinas en el valle de El Grullo-Autlán son de gran importancia para el progreso y tranquilidad social de sus habitantes, ya que los cultivos básicos son parte importante en su economía y consumo. En las últimas décadas la caña de azúcar ha jugado un papel relevante en el desarrollo de esta región dada la gran importancia de este cultivo tanto a nivel nacional, como internacional y donde la demanda del mismo es parte sustancial en la economía mundial. Esta actividad ha permitido detectar bajo la percepción de algunos actores (ejidatarios, ingenio, asociaciones e inclusive gobierno), situaciones que generan molestia en los mismos, malos entendidos en el accionar de la cadena productiva de la caña de azúcar reflejados principalmente en los costos de los insumos del cultivo. Uno de los propósitos de este estudio es dar a conocer el sentir y perspectiva de los productores de caña de azúcar en relación a las organizaciones cañeras locales (CNPR y CNC). Los resultado...
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Papers by Blanca L Figueroa-Rangel
de los ecosistemas de México expone una revisión
de los ecosistemas de nuestro país desde esta perspectiva
sistémica, lo cual hace al libro aún más valioso, pues contrasta
con la manera tradicional de describir y analizar la
gran riqueza biológica que posee nuestro país. En esta obra
no solo se incluye un capítulo completo sobre el impacto
de las actividades humanas en la biodiversidad y en los
ecosistemas, sino además otro sobre las consecuencias que
esta pérdida de biodiversidad está teniendo en los ecosistemas
y sus servicios.