The César Manrique Foundation (FCM) will present this Thursday, October 2, at 7:30 p.m., the publication entitled The thermophilic forests. Canary Islands, Madeira and Cape Verde. It consists of an exhaustive research work coordinated by the professor of Ecology of the University of La Laguna, José María Fernández-Palacios, in which a group of twelve researchers from different universities participates and which is published by Macaronesia Editorial.
The event will take place in the José Saramago room (Arrecife) and will be broadcast live through the FCM website and YouTube channel.
The publication compiles the existing knowledge regarding the thermophilic communities of Macaronesia, located, with different versions, in the archipelagos of the Canary Islands, Madeira and Cape Verde. The text explains how the concept of thermophilic forests arises throughout the history of research in Macaronesia, the evolution of the climate and the Mediterranean biome, the origin and distribution of the main thermophilic communities and of the tree and shrub species that integrate them, likewise, a review of the most significant human impacts and existing conservation strategies is included.
This is the second installment of the trilogy dedicated to the Canary forests, following the publication, by the same publisher seven years ago, of the book La Laurisilva. Canary Islands, Madeira and Azores, which was also presented at the César Manrique Foundation. In this new study, in addition to José María Fernández-Palacios, José Ramón Arévalo, Rubén Barone, Álvaro Castilla-Beltrán, Lea de Nascimento, María Cristina Duarte, Enrique Fernández-Palacios, Agustín Naranjo Cigala, Sandra Nogué, Rüdiger Otto, María M. Romeiras and Natalia Sierra participate.
José María Fernández-Palacios is a professor of Ecology at the University of La Laguna. After more than 40 years of university career, his scientific career is characterized by lines of research related to the ecology of islands, in general, and of Macaronesia, in particular, among which biogeography and island ecology, the forest dynamics of the laurisilva and pine forest, paleobiogeography and paleoecology, and ecological restoration stand out.
His contributions in these scientific fields include around 170 articles in high-impact journals, more than half of which have been published in journals in the first quartile (including Nature and Science) and fifteen books, several of them published by Oxford University Press. He has written more than a hundred chapters in books and informative or opinion articles. Likewise, he has led the Island Ecology and Biogeography research group at the University of La Laguna for 20 years, in which he directed eleven doctoral theses and more than fifty end-of-degree, degree or master's projects.
In 2022 he was nominated as a member (nº 5571) of the Academia Europaea and received the award for the best scientific researcher from the University of La Laguna. He currently chairs the Society of Island Biology (SIB) and has been designated by the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition to lead the biogeographical process of Macaronesia.
