In this post-Sant Jordi commentary, I should like to refer to just a few books of great quality and interest on some perhaps less well-known traveler scientists.

An analysis of 1018 bird species led by CREAF and CSIC scientists suggests that innovation is not just an adaptation on it own, but emerges with the combination of certain adaptations which developed for dealing with changes in the environment, including having a large brain and being curious. Primates, cetaceans, parrots, and crows innovate because they have long lifespans and are adapted to living in changing environments.

We interview Catherine Preece, PhD in biological studies and specialist on sub-arctic vegetation. Dr. Preece carried out her first post-doc at the University of Sheffield on agriculture-related themes. The Marie Curie grant awardee is currently doing her second post-doctoral stay in Catalonia, where she is now focusing on drought effects in Mediterranean forests. Our conversation covered a number of topics, including: what is the role of climate change?

A new study on wildfires in California, published in the journal PLOS ONE, and with the participation of  Enric Batllori, researcher from CREAF and the Catalonia Forest Technology Centre (CTFC), reveals that human activities influence the frequency and location of wildfires just as much as climate. The researchers evaluated both the 'anthropogenic factor' and climate change.

The forest treeline shifts upward slower than temperature increase, and it can be hindered by densification of shrubs. A number of factors influence upward forest expansion, including the particular plant species growing near trees, climate change, human activity, and terrain morphology. The Tibetan Plateau, practically devoid of human pressures, offers a pristine area for study 

Since 1982, Earth has become greener in an area covering 36 million km², close to two times the size of the United States. Above all, this seems to be the result of a fertilizing effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) on plants. The study was carried out with satellite images which can capture this increase in terrestrial leaf area.

Researchers from ICTJA-CSIC, CREAF and the University of Barcelona have extracted a number of sedimentary samples from lake bottoms on the island. These samples have allowed the reconstruction of environmental changes over the past 3,000 years including history of its climate, ecology and culture. The pollen records that had been relied upon previously for such work were not continuous and their interpretation led to the erroneous idea that deforestation of the island was sudden and caused exclusively by human over-exploitation.

In 1966, the USA’s President is Lyndon Johnson, in the USSR it is Brezhnev, in France de Gaulle, in India Indira Gandhi. There is an increasing US involvement in Vietnam’s war (and an increasing refuse of war inside the US). 

When an animal has limited information about its environment, a chaotic movement pattern could be an efficient strategy for finding what it needs. For mollusks, this could result from internal neural processes. Understanding the mechanisms for chaos generation and its connection with search behavior could help apply these types of patterns to research on humans.