Despite the increasing scientific and public interest in wild food plants, their traditional knowledge is undergoing a deep cultural erosion process at global scale. The paper assesses past present use of plants Sierra Norte de Madrid (Spain) order to understand which are main drivers its evolution. We interviewed 132 informants analyzed importance following: (1) human use-category compared wit...

Floral odor is a key trait for pollinator attraction in many plants, but may also direct antagonists like herbivores to flowers. In this study, we examined how floral scent changes after pollination in Silene latifolia, which has a specialized relationship with the seed predator Hadena bicruris. We found an overall decrease in total scent emission and considerable changes in relative amounts of...

Currently, the monophyletic lineage of anther smuts on Caryophyllaceae includes 22 species classified in the genus Microbotryum. They are model organisms studied in many disciplines of fungal biology. A molecular phylogenetic approach was used to resolve species boundaries within the caryophyllaceous anther smuts, as species delimitation based solely on phenotypic characters was problematic. Se...

Critical determinants of the optimum level of virulence in pathogens include the presence of competitors (i.e., multiple infections), their relatedness, and the effect of competitors on pathogen growth and disease development. Empirical data regarding the existence of competitive interactions and their impact on virulence remain very limited compared to theoretical studies. Here, we followed an...

Silene ciliata Pourr. (Caryophyllaceae) is a species with a highly disjunct distribution which inhabits the alpine mountains of the Mediterranean Basin. We investigated the phylogeny and phylogeography of the species to (a) clarify the long-suggested division of S. ciliata into two subspecies, (b) evaluate its phylogenetic origin and (c) assess whether the species' diversification patterns were...

The taxonomy of the closely related Silene capraria, S. neglecta and S. nocturna in Italy is investigated, by means of morphometric and karyological analyses. The chromosome numbers of S. capraria and S. neglecta (both diploid with 2n = 24) are here reported for the first time. On the basis of the morphological results, we propose the species rank for S. neglecta, and to consider S. capraria as...