The aim of this paper is to evaluate seed bank density and composition along a semi-arid gypsum gradient in Central Spain. Seed bank density was relatively high (16,214 seed/m) with a very clumped spatial distribution. Landform and microslope were the best predictors for seed density, indicating that density can be at least partly interpreted as a result of the physical processes regulating sec...

Desert truffles belonging to Terfezia are well known mycorrhizal members of the mycota of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East. We aimed to test (i) whether the morphological criteria of Terfezia species regularly collected in Spain enable their separation and (ii) whether the previously hypothesized edaphic/biotic specificity of one group could be confirmed by study of a larger number ...

According to life-history theory, reproductive investments involve costs in terms of growth, future fecundity, and/or survival. However, studies to date have often failed to detect costs of reproduction, with survival costs among the less documented. We investigated the cost of reproduction in Helianthemum squamatum (Cistaceae), a short-lived perennial of semiarid Mediterranean environments. Af...

terfezia, picoa and tirmania, so called desert truffles, are mycorrhizal fungi mostly endemic to arid and semi-arid areas of the mediterranean region, where they are associated with helianthemum and carexspecies. the aim of this work was to study the identification, molecular analysis, distribution and hosts of these pezizalean hypogeous fungi in iran. among the specimens, terfezia claveryi, ti...

Acanthamoeba spp. commonly cause Acanthamoeba keratitis which is typically associated with the wear of contact lenses. Therefore, finding an economic, efficient, and safe therapy of natural origin is of outmost importance. This study examined the in vitro lethal potential of ethyl acetate and methanol extracts of Helianthemum lippii (L.) (sun roses) against Acanthamoeba castellanii cysts isolat...

Molecular systematics requires the establishment of a robust phylogenetic framework including extensive geographical and taxonomic sampling. In this work, we proposed systematic changes in genus Helianthemum based on trees obtained by both maximum likelihood Bayesian analyses GBS data. The implications these results for entail new subgenus novel re-ascriptions sections species along with some n...

Potential distributions of endemic relic shrubs in western Ordos were poorly mapped, which hindered our implementation of proper conservation. Here we investigated the applicability of ecological niche modeling for endangered relic shrubs to detect areas of priority for biodiversity conservation and analyze differences in ecological niche spaces used by relic shrubs. We applied ordination and n...