Clonalidad y envejecimiento de Cytisus supranubius (Fabaceae) en la alta montaña de Tenerife.

The analysis of population structure is extremely important for making management decisions on threatened species, or those that could become threatened in a short period of time. This work analyses the large-scale population structure of a keystone species in the high mountain of Tenerife, Cytisus supranubius, which is in regression mainly due to regeneration problems caused by the European rabbit, an invasive species in the Canary Islands. Furthermore, through the comparative study of vegetative and reproductive characteristics of sexual and clonal individuals, we estimate the role of clonality in the regeneration rate. Our results show that there are currently serious problems of ageing of the shrub population in El Teide National Park, with a very low proportion of individuals of sexual origin. Clonal individuals have fewer flowers, which increases the regeneration problem. It is shown that the ageing process affects more than 50% of the existing individuals below 2500 m of altitude, and that the proportion of juveniles (4%) is not adequate to expect a change in this trend, which emphasises the need to improve the control of European rabbits.