Reviewnpj biodiversity2023
Volcanic ash deposition as a selection mechanism towards woodiness.
Review in npj biodiversity, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Ecological resilience and biodiversity dynamics of an Island forest following a volcanic eruption.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Speciation happens in company - not in isolation.npj biodiversity · 2024Review
- Volcanic tephra deposition dataset based on interpolated field measurements following the 2021 Tajogaite Eruption on La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain.Data in brief · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
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Abstract
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. We postulate that this selects for woodiness through an increased ability to avoid burial of plant organs by ash, and to re-emerge above the new land surface. We sense-checked using observations of plant occurrences and distributions on La Palma (Canary Islands) in April 2022, 4 months after the end of the eruptions of the Tajogaite volcano (Cumbre Vieja ridge). In contrast to herbs and grasses, most woody plants persisted and were already in full flower in areas with 10+ cm ash deposition. Remarkably, these persisting woody plants were almost exclusively endemics.
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