Pablo M. Lucas

@pablomlucas.bsky.social

Postdoc @ Univ. of Seville | 🌍 Macroecology & 🐾 Conservation Biology | Studying global change effects on biodiversity 🌡️🌱 | Focus on large mammals 🐻🐺 🐐

Videos

Environmental science 80%

Geography 20%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Pablo M. Lucas

Global Change Biology @globalchangebio.bsky.social · Jun 12

Trophic Interactions Are Key to Understanding the Effects of Global Change on the Distribution and Functional Role of the Brown Bear

🔗 buff.ly/h0P8Ho6

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

@unisevilla.bsky.social @csic.es @mncn-csic.bsky.social @ebdonana.bsky.social @csicdivulga.bsky.social @eloyrevilla.bsky.social @laura-pollock.bsky.social

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

1⃣6⃣🔑 KEY MESSAGES:
1⃣ Ecological networks help improve biodiversity & #speciesdistributionmodels under #climate & #land-use change.
2⃣ Global change reshapes #foodwebs, affecting #ecosystem structure & function.
3⃣ We need better data on species #interactions.

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

1⃣5⃣Brown bears have a wide potential distribution in Europe, but future #climatechange and land-use changes—through abiotic and biotic factors—will affect each subpopulation differently.

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

1⃣4⃣The inclusion of biotic interactions considerably improved our understanding of brown bear distribution at large (continental) scales compared with Bayesian models including only abiotic factors (climate and land use)

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

1⃣3⃣Bear diet depends of climate and land use variables, for example subpopulations located in areas with higher temperatures eat more plants, which means that bears have different roles in the ecosystems

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

1⃣2⃣🚨 RESULTS🚨 What brown bear eats?

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

1⃣1⃣ We fitted three models explaining the distribution of brown bear (Using the historical range data and the current data): 1) A model with only abiotic variables 2) A model only biotic variables 3) A model combining abiotic and biotic variables

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

🔟And the #biotic variables

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

9⃣ Using all wild species in the brown bear diet, we created #biotic variables based on the energy each species provides. We combined this with #habitat #models for each #diet species using
@gbif.es @gbif.org , #climate, and #landuse data

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

8⃣… and (2) high-resolution occurrences of brown bears from all European and Turkish subpopulations. We built a database with over 3 million 🐻 occurrences from more than 3,000 individuals, covering a broad environmental range.”

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

7⃣We combined distribution data for brown bears by using (1) range-scale data from the Eurasian range, complemented with historical range info from historical sources. Avilable at zenodo.org/records/1537...

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

6⃣ To fill the biotic‑interaction gap, we reviewed 47 studies on the 🐻 brown bear’s diet🍏🌿🐜🦌🫎 across Europe and built a detailed trophic database — a #foodweb with >1,300 quantitative, empirical links, available at zenodo.org/records/1536...

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

5⃣ …and from a #conservation perspective, the brown bear is a keystone species in some of the most important protected areas of the continent: #CordilleraCantábrica #Pyrenees #Alps #Carpathians #Apennines #Pindus #Balkans #Finland #Baltic #Scandinavia #Natura2000 #Türkiye #Tatra

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

4⃣ To address this, we focused on the #brownbear in #Europe and #Türkiye — a well-studied species and region. From an #ecosystem perspective, the brown bear is a top #predator and an #omnivorous generalist, key to ecosystems and with several subpopulations at #extinction risk e.g. #Cantabrian

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

3⃣ However, when studying species distributions at large scales, we usually focus on abiotic variables such as climate and land use. This is partly due to the limited data on biotic interactions at broad scales — a gap known as the Eltonian shortfall. annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Seven Shortfalls that Beset Large-Scale Knowledge of Biodiversity | Annual Reviews

Ecologists and evolutionary biologists are increasingly using big-data approaches to tackle questions at large spatial, taxonomic, and temporal scales. However, despite recent efforts to gather two ce...

annualreviews.org

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

2⃣ Hutchinson proposed that species distributions are shaped by a complex set of abiotic and biotic factors. For example, the #IberianLynx 😺 depends on rabbit 🐰abundance (Monterroso et al. 2016).

Pablo M. Lucas @pablomlucas.bsky.social · Jun 9

📢PAPER ALERT!!🚨🚨
Our article “Trophic interactions are key to understanding how global change shapes the distribution and ecological role of the brown bear” 🐻is now online in
@globalchangebio.bsky.social #Climate #Ecology #Biodiversity #bear #SDM #carnivores
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Reposted by Joaquín Hortal, Julen Astigarraga, Pablo M. Lucas

Manuela Gonzalez Suarez @mgs-cielo-azul.bsky.social · Jun 4

New paper! led by Ruben Bernardo-Madrid "A general rule on the organization of biodiversity in Earth’s biogeographical regions" in NEE @natureportfolio.nature.com

Read it here: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

A general rule on the organization of biodiversity in Earth’s biogeographical regions - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Ecological assemblages may be spatially organized by both context dependency and general processes. Here the authors find general patterns in the organization of regional biodiversity in biogeographic...

doi.org

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