Fire Ecology is the scientific discipline that studies the role of fire in organisms and ecosystems. Despite the fact that fire has a generally negative connotation, it is part of the ecosystem and there is evidence that it has occurred ever since the appearance of land plants millions of years ago in the Palaeozoic, and that it has therefore influenced their evolution. For instance, ecosystems prone to fire, such as those of the Mediterranean, are dominated by vegetation that is adapted to fire as a result of this long association.

A team from the Hispano-Portuguese Institute for Agricultural Research (CIALE) of the University of Salamanca has confirmed that nitric oxide (NO), a molecule that regulates many plant processes, is vital for seed germination. The finding is part of an extensive project designed to improve seed quality in which researchers from several European countries are taking part.

Researchers from the departments of Clinical Microbiology and Internal Medicine of the University Welfare Complex of León, the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of León (IBIOMED), the National Microbiology Centre of the Carlos III Health Institute, and the University School of Physiotherapy of the Spanish Organisation for the Blind (Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles, ONCE) of Madrid have published for the first time four cases of bacteremia (the presence of bacteria in the blood) owing to Janibacter terrae in humans.

Scientists of the Research Group into the Recent Prehistory and Protohistory of the Spanish northern plateau of the University of Valladolid, led by the lecturer Manuel Rojo Guerra, are working on the 2013-2016 National Research Plan Paths of the Neolithic II: analysis and documentation. Its ultimate objective is to study and record all the material from the various excavations carried out since 2009 in the Els Trocs Cave in the Aita Ribagorza region in the province of Huesca, a Neolithic site some 7,300 years old.