27 26 El Indiferente | 21 MARZO 2011 MARZO 2011 21 | El Indiferente The thermophilous woodlands. The Mediterranean appearance of the Canary Islands. The Canarian thermophilous woodlands constitute a young ecosystem, still under construction, closely linked with the onset of the Mediterranean climate type, characterized by their arid summers and wet winters, which took place some 2.5 million years ago. These woodlands are constituted by several arboreal community types (sabinares, acebuchales, almacigares, palmerales, retamares blancos, etc.), dominated each one by a different Canarian endemic or native tree or shrub species. They were potentially distributed between the coastal sub-desert scrub and the laurel forest in the windward slopes (ca. 200-500 m) and the coastal sub-desert scrub and the pine forest in the leeward slopes (ca. 300-900 m). They are with difference the worst conserved of the Canarian terrestrial ecosystems and consequently the worst known of them, because the severe impact suffered by both the guanche people and the Castilians after the Canarian conquest. Despite our lack of knowledge, we do know that these woodlands are home of an incredible array of endemic species, many of them threatened by human activities in the past. Los bosques TERMÓFILOS el aspecto mediterráneo de Canarias José M. Fernández-Palacios, Rüdiger Oto, Juan D. Delgado, José R. Arévalo, Agusín Naranjo, Francisco González Ariles, Carlo Morici & Rubén Barone