Volcanic tephra deposition dataset based on interpolated field measurements following the 2021 Tajogaite Eruption on La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain.

In 2021, the Tajogaite Volcano erupted along the western slope of the Cumbre Vieja on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. Volcanic tephra blanketed a substantial proportion of the island. By our estimations, approximately 23,000,000 m of pyroclastic ashes and more coarse-grained particles were deposited unto La Palma's land surface in addition to the lava flow.

Volcanic ash deposition as a selection mechanism towards woodiness.

The high proportion of woody plant species on oceanic islands has hitherto been explained mainly by gradual adaptation to climatic conditions. Here, we present a novel hypothesis that such woodiness is adaptative to volcanic ash (tephra) deposition. Oceanic islands are subject to frequent eruptions with substantial and widespread ash deposition on evolutionary time scales.

Plant ecology. Worldwide evidence of a unimodal relationship between productivity and plant species richness.

The search for predictions of species diversity across environmental gradients has challenged ecologists for decades. The humped-back model (HBM) suggests that plant diversity peaks at intermediate productivity; at low productivity few species can tolerate the environmental stresses, and at high productivity a few highly competitive species dominate. Over time the HBM has become increasingly controversial, and recent studies claim to have refuted it.

Vegetation dynamics, and land use and land cover change in the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia.

Shifts in biological communities are occurring at rapid rates as human activities induced global climate change increases. Understanding the effects of the change on biodiversity is important to reduce loss of biodiversity and mass extinction, and to insure the long-term persistence of natural resources and natures' services. Especially in remote landscapes of developing countries, precise knowledge about on-going processes is scarce.