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Heavily biased by ideological prejudices, traditional Spanish scholarship claimed the existence of sharply divergent approaches between Iberian Christians and Muslims about the perception of the land and the feelings that got them bound to it. Gathered around a shared national project, the Christians would have held highly stable emotional bonds to the land they lived in. Propelled by a strong sense of attachment to their territories, they would have fought tirelessly over eight centuries to recover the lands previously seized by the Muslims. Lacking a similar sense of belonging to the land, the Muslims, bound by agnatic and religious ties, would have considered themselves just temporary dwellers. However, a careful reading of the Arabic sources suggests the existence of parallels regarding the recovery of lost lands. This article seeks to provide compelling textual evidence about the idea of land recovery among the Muslims across the 11 th and the 12th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ribesalbes-Alcora Basin (Castelló Province, Spain) contains two lower Miocene units that are rich in fossils. The Unit B contains oil-shale and laminated bituminous dolomicrite related to a palaeolake, whereas the Unit C is composed of sandstone and mudstone beds from distal deltaic and shallow lacustrine environments. The La Rinconada and San Chils localities from the Unit B have yielded a fossil assemblage of plants, molluscs, arthropods, and vertebrates, while the localities from the Unit C in the Campisano ravine (Araia/Mas d'Antolino outcrop) are rich in mammalian record. Here we study a new palaeolake deposit of laminated lacustrine limestone beds in the Unit C named Foieta la Sarra-A. This new locality has provided an assemblage of charophytes, terrestrial plants, molluscs, arthropods, and teleosteans. The latter represent the only known fish record from the Ribesalbes-Alcora Basin to date. Although the specimens are generally poorly preserved, the presence of soft-body preservation due to the action of microbial mats at the lake bottom allows considering the Foieta la Sarra-A locality as a Konservat-Lagerstätte. The Foieta la Sarra-A palaeolake had a different water chemistry compared to that represented in the Unit B. Its depth was about a few metres and the water level suffered periodic fluctuations. This new locality sheds light on the palaeoenvironmental dynamics of the Ribesalbes-Alcora Basin during the early Miocene and provides a new approach to the palaeoecological reconstruction of the basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Rhus asymmetrica sp. nov. from the lower Oligocene of Cervera (Catalonia, Spain) is characterized by a trifoliate leaf with a symmetric sessile apical leaflet and asymmetric lateral leaflets. The apical leaflet displays a serrate margin and decurrent base with pinnate primary venation, craspedodromous secondary venation and an irregular reticulate tertiary framework. The lateral leaflets show a rounded base with a secondary basal vein in the distal part of the lamina, while the proximal part is straight or concave. Formerly, these specimens were accommodated within Rhus pyrrhae Unger. However, detailed study of the R. pyrrhae holotype has led us to emend its diagnosis to include its brochidodromous secondary venation pattern, which differs clearly from the venation pattern of the new species. Additionally, a number of leaf morphotypes from the Cervera palaeobotanical site that were erroneously attributed to Rhus by former authors have been segregated and related to Acer and Toxicodendron. The extant species R. aromatica displays the closest foliar structure to R. asymmetrica sp. nov. However, differences in the leaf morphology suggest that the new species grew under distinct palaeoclimatic conditions: (1) R. asymmetrica sp. nov. bears glands at the tips of the teeth of the lateral leaflets while R. aromatica is devoid of these glands. This character would help to prevent excessive evapotranspiration; (2) lateral leaflets of R. asymmetrica sp. nov. are asymmetric while in R. aromatica they are symmetric, suggesting that R. asymmetrica sp. nov. grew under a greater environmental stress than R. aromatica ; (3) R. asymmetrica sp. nov. displays fewer teeth with a larger tooth-area than R. aromatica. This would indicate growth under a warm climate with low seasonal contrast. These features are compatible with an open woodland habitat under subtropical palaeoclimatic conditions. Highlights • Rhus asymmetrica sp. nov. from the Oligocene of the Iberian Peninsula is described. • Living North American R. aromatica displays the leaf closest to R. asymmetrica. • Differences in leaf characters of R. asymmetrica and its NLR are climate-sensitive. • Glands in lateral leaflets teeth of R. asymmetrica point out to water stress. • R. asymmetrica shows few and large teeth as a response to warm and arid climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nucleotide sequence of the VD1 domain of the Long Unassigned Region in the F mitochondrial DNA genome was studied for 135 Iberian mussels, 78 from the Atlantic and 57 from the Mediterranean. Significant genetic differentiation between Atlantic and Mediterranean Mytilus galloprovincialis samples was found (F = 0.262, P < 0.00001). The four main clusters observed in the neighbor-joining tree of haplotypes were not exclusive for a specific region, but a clear geographic pattern could be observed. One of the clusters contained 86% of the Atlantic individuals and the remaining three clusters were predominantly Mediterranean. The Atlantic-Mediterranean differentiation of the mitochondrial DNA haplotypes was in agreement with previous data describing the same partitioning in M. galloprovincialis and in many other marine organisms, using different kinds of genetic markers. In all cases the Almeria Oran Oceanographic front has been associated to this genetic discontinuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The systematics of the genus Sepia is not yet clear. Morphological evidence has led to S. officinalis Linnaeus, 1758 being considered as belonging to the subgenus Sepia sensu stricto, and S. orbignyana Férussac, 1826 and S. elegans Blainville, 1827 as belonging to the subgenus Rhombosepion. Samples of 30 individuals of S. officinalis and S. orbignyana from both sides of an oceanographic boundary off the north-west Iberian Peninsula, and a sample of S. elegans from the northern side, were collected in 1993-1994. Allozyme electrophoresis for 32 presumptive loci revealed low levels of genetic variability for the three Sepia species (mean expected heterozygosity estimates were <0.052). No significant differences in allozyme frequencies were detected among populations of either S. officinalis or S. orbignyana. The genetic identities ( I) of S. officinalis and S. orbignyana ( I=0.12) and of S. elegans ( I=0.13) were significantly different from that of S. orbignyana and S. elegans ( I=0.49). The former are typical of values for confamilial genera, and a new generic status is proposed for the latter two species, which become Rhombosepion orbignyana (Férussac, 1826) and R. elegans (Blainville, 1827). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phytosanitary emergency caused by the spread of Xylella fastidiosa in the Mediterranean has raised demands for a better understanding of the ecology of its presumed and candidate insect vectors. Here, we present the results of a two-year survey carried out in olive groves across southern, eastern and Central Spain and northeastern Portugal. Several sampling methods were tested and compared to select the most appropriate to estimate population levels of potential vectors of X. fastidiosa. The spittlebugs Philaenus spumarius and Neophilaenus campestris (Hemiptera: Aphrophoridae) were the main species associated with olive groves. Both species were widely present on herbaceous ground vegetation within the olive groves; P. spumarius mainly associated with Asteraceae and N. campestris with Poaceae. Due to the patchy distribution of spittlebugs within the olive groves, sweep nets were the most effective and least time-consuming sampling method for the estimation of population size both in the ground cover and tree canopies. Trends in population density showed that spittlebugs can be abundant on ground vegetation but very rare on olive canopies. Spittlebugs disperse in late spring to non-cultivated hosts that act as natural reservoirs. In late fall, adults return to the olive groves for oviposition. However, olive trees may act as transient hosts for spittlebugs and high population densities of these insect vectors should be avoided in areas where X. fastidiosa is present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Diagnosis of land condition is a basic prerequisite for finding the degradation of a territory under climatic and human pressures leading to desertification. Ecosystemic approaches, such as the one presented here, address ecosystem maturity or resilience. They are low cost, not very prone to error propagation and well-suited to implementation on remotely sensed time–series data covering large areas. The purposes of this work were to develop a land condition surveillance methodology based on the amount of biomass produced per unit rainfall, and to test it on the Iberian Peninsula. In this article, we propose parallel and complementary synchronic assessment and diachronic monitoring procedures to overcome the paradox of monitoring as a sequence of assessments. This is intrinsically contradictory when dealing with complex landscape mosaics, as relative estimators commonly produced for assessment are often difficult to set in a meaningful time sequence. Our approach is built on monthly time–series of two types of data, a vegetation density estimator (Green Vegetation Fraction-GVF) derived from Global Environmental Monitoring satellite archives, and corresponding interpolated climate fields. Rain Use Efficiency (RUE) is computed on two time scales to generate assessment classes. This enables detrended comparisons across different climate zones and provides automatic detection of reference areas to obtain relative RUE. The monitoring procedure uses raw GVF change rates over time and aridity in a stepwise regression to generate subclasses of discriminated trends for those drivers. The results of assessment and monitoring are then combined to yield the land condition diagnostics through explicit rules that associate their respective categories. The approach was tested in the Iberian Peninsula for the period 1989 to 2000 using monthly GVF images derived from the 1-km MEDOKADS archive based on the NOAA-AVHRR sensors, and a corresponding archive of climate variables. The resulting land condition was validated against independent data from the Natura 2000 network of conservation reserves. In very general terms, land was found to be healthier than expected, with localised spots of ongoing degradation that were associated with current or recent intensive land use. Static or positive vegetation growth rates were detected almost everywhere, including Mediterranean areas that had undergone increased aridification during the study period. Interestingly, degrading or static trends prevailed in degraded or unusually degraded land, whereas trends to improve were most represented in land in good or unusually good condition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Palaeonitella trifurcata n. sp. is a minute ecorticate thallus of a charophyte from a non-marine upper Barremian–Lower Aptian section of the Garraf Massif, near Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain). Whorls of trifurcated branchlets built glomerules about 1 mm across. Small radial branchlets were trifurcated once in three terminal acuminate dactyls. Longer and more robust branches, two per whorl emerge from a basal trifurcation, bore opposite secondary branchlets and ended in three terminal branchlets bearing one oospore. The whole set of characters suggests affinity with Nitella , making of this fossil one of the oldest and unique possible records of thalli of this extant genus. The thallus of P. trifurcata n. sp. was encrusted by a thin micrite film, and additionally, the whorls were coated by a thicker crust while the plant was still alive. It is suggested that this crust was formed upon the periphyton which grew perhaps upon a mucilage covering the whorls and apical heads, as it happens in extant Nitella. After encrustation, a small (ca. 5 mm across) constructive micrite envelope, called a cortoid, was formed attached to the plant, preserving in the inside the thallus articulated and slightly encrusted. Once the plant died, such cortoids accumulated on the lake bottom and were buried and lithified, forming a "cortolite". This is the first report of constructive micrite envelopes protecting delicate and poorly calcified charophyte thalli from being destroyed. • The first fossil charophyte thallus with strong affinities to extant Nitella is reconstructed. • The fossil record of this type of thallus is exceptional since it rarely calcifies. • Portions of thalli occur calcified within coated grains in a Lower Cretaceous limestone near Barcelona. • Such coated grains, called cortoids, formed while the plant was still alive. • The new term "cortolite" is proposed for the rock texture produced by the accumulation of cortoids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]