The Terrestrial Ecology Laboratory was created at IMEDEA in 2000. For more than 20 years of research, our main aim is to contribute to the understanding of nature complexity by investigating the ecology and evolution of species interactions, a crucial component of biodiversity that is essential for community stability and ecosystem functioning. Within the framework of community ecology, we combine observational data we gather in the field with simulation models to assess how species interactions contribute to maintain biodiversity and how different drivers of global change can disrupt derived ecosystem functions. We strongly believe that interdisciplinarity is what moves science forwards. Hence, we collaborate with theoreticians (specifically, physicists) to reveal hidden patterns in ecological networks and to develop new models of species coextinctions that will provide more realistic outcomes in our simulations of potential ecological collapses.

We further use an evolutionary ecology approach in our research. Thus, besides the structure of species interactions, we are interested on their functional role in the community and on the fitness consequences of interacting species. Most of our research so far has focused on two types of mutualistic interactions: pollination and seed dispersal by animals. We are especially interested in evaluating which functional traits determine the species position in the network, i.e., its functional role in the community (effect traits), as well as its vulnerability in the face of a disturbance (response traits). In particular, we use the conceptual framework of mutualistic interactions with trait-based approaches to unveil how non-native species integrate into native communities and can influence the evolution and/or survival of native species. We further use such framework to assess how other global change drives such as climate change may alter the interactions between plants and their pollinators and seed dispersers.

As we live and work in an island, an important characteristic of our research fits within the framework of island ecology. Islands are indeed ideal systems to better understand complexity, mostly due to their simplicity -in terms of species richness and number of interactions- compared to mainland areas. We do research in a variety of island ecosystems, ranging from Mediterranean to tropical islands. Specifically, we work in the Balearics, in the Canary Islands (Spain), in Galápagos (Ecuador), in Berlengas (Portugal) and, most recently, in Seychelles (R. Seychelles) and in Ogasawara (Japan). The main goals of our research in these archipelagos are: 1) to understand how (small) island communities are assembled by focusing on different types of ecological interactions (i.e., both mutualistic and antagonistic,) and 2) to assess how vulnerable they are to global change, mainly to biological invasions -the main threat to these unique ecosystems-. We use an approach based on multi-layer networks to reach such goals.

Still, another research line in which we work and collaborate with other laboratories at IMEDEA is the study of the coastal systems and their management. We aim at proposing sustainable alternatives to act against coastal erosion. We began this research line participating in a multidisciplinary research project (System Playa de Palma) in which we assessed the biodiversity of three natural zones within the Bay of Palma (south of Mallorca) to advise on future management practices. In Alcúdia Bay (northern Mallorca), we have studied how erosion influences recruitment and growth of the primary dune vegetation, evaluating the role that the threatened shrub Juniperus oxycedrus subsp. macrocarpa has on dune establishment. We have further investigated how the seagrass Posidonia oceanica influences the germination and seedling growth of different dune plants from the Balearic Islands. Most recently, we have studied the dynamics of the P. oceanica beach-casts accumulated in different beaches in Mallorca, studying the macrofaunal community living in this particular coastal ecosystem.