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Air pollution and climate change are risk factors for noncommunicable diseases of paramount importance and of major concern in a population. Their complex interaction suggests the need for an integrated and participatory approach by health professionals and citizens. During the Italian BRIGHT-NIGHT (European Researchers’ Night) at the Pisa Research Campus of National Research Council (CNR), a laboratory focusing on environmental epidemiology issues and open to the public was set up. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed, with the aim of investigating the individual perception, knowledge, opinions and attitudes in relation to 12 different environmental, natural and anthropogenic hazards. The questionnaire was completed by 44 subjects aged over 18 years (47.6% female, 56.8% university graduates, 61.4% employed). Air pollution and climate change were considered two priorities for environmental protection and public health by 72.1%, prompting about one third of the subjects to commit to increasing active commuting. The results of this pilot survey indicate a diffuse awareness of air pollution and climate change as main environmental determinants to be tackled in order to protect public health.

Coastal ecosystems, encompassing land and marine environments and hosting substantial biodiversity, are among the most threatened worldwide. The European Habitats Directive prioritises coastal habitats and species, requiring legislative, direct protection, monitoring, and informational measures. Accurate habitat and species monitoring is crucial to conservation efforts, yet biodiversity research in complex, ever-changing environments like coastal areas is difficult. Citizen Science may bridge biodiversity assessment and eco-friendly monitoring by incorporating non-scientists into the data collection for scientists and stakeholders. A Citizen Science approach supported by a dedicated iNaturalist project (called Wild Coast CASCADE) was implemented to obtain a complete monitoring framework that includes observations of many taxa in terrestrial, aquatic, and transitional dynamic coastal environments in the Central Italian Adriatic coast. We explored data gathered focusing on the IUCN Red List species, the species and habitats of European conservation concern, and the non-native species. Between 2020 and 2023, we collected 3784 records covering 742 species, with 81% meeting the “research grade criteria”, and these were retained for subsequent research. Citizen Science volunteers have collected 291 georeferenced animal records from the global IUCN Red List, 51 plant species from 14 species that are indicators of the presence of habitats of European Conservation Concern, and 44 non-native plants and animals. Our results provide evidence that citizen research projects can effectively assist in monitoring coastal–marine habitats and species. They also underline the potential of Citizen Science for biodiversity conservation and emphasize the importance of public engagement in conservation efforts.

High mountain ecosystems are hotspots of biodiversity that are highly vulnerable to climate warming and land use change. In Europe, high mountain habitats are included in the EC Directive 92/43/EEC (Habitats Directive) and the identification of practices facilitating effective monitoring is crucial for meeting HD goals. We analyzed the temporal changes in species composition and diversity on high mountain EU habitats and explored if the subgroup of diagnostic species was able to summarize the comprehensive information on plant community variations. We performed a re-visitation study, using a set of 30 georeferenced historical plots newly collected after 20 years on two EU habitats (Galium magellense community growing on screes (8120 EU) and Trifolium thalii community of snowbeds (6170 EU)) in the Maiella National Park (MNP), which is one of the most threatened Mediterranean mountains in Europe. The presence of several endangered species and the availability of a botanical garden, a seed bank, and a nursery, make the MNP an excellent training ground to explore in situ and ex situ conservation strategies. We compared overall and diagnostic species richness patterns over time by rarefaction curves and described the singular aspects of species diversity (e.g., richness, Shannon index, Simpson index, and Berger–Parker index), by Rènyi’s diversity profiles. Diversity values consistently varied over time and across EU habitat types, with increasing values on scree communities and decreasing values on snowbeds. These changes could be associated with both land use change, through the increase of grazing pressure of Apennine chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica ornata), which determined a rise of nitrophilous species in the scree community, and an increase of grasses at the expense of forbs in snowbeds, and to climate change, which promoted a general expansion of thermophilous species. Despite the two opposite, ongoing processes on the two plant communities studied, our results evidenced that diagnostic species and overall species followed the same trend of variation, demonstrating the potential of diagnostics for EU habitat monitoring. Our observations suggested that the re-visitation of historical plots and the implementation of frequent monitoring campaigns on diagnostic species can provide important data on species abundance and distribution patterns in these vulnerable ecosystems, supporting optimized in situ and ex situ conservation actions.

Invasive alien plants (IAP) pose a major threat to biodiversity and have a negative impact on the integrity and conservation status of plant communities. Mediterranean dunes are widely exposed to IAP, due to their environmental heterogeneity and the anthropogenic pressures to which they are subjected. The current study explored the possible existence of critical thresholds of IAP cover/abundance and dune path impacts that may cause the decline in diagnostic species cover in shifting and transition dunes. A random sampling of 126 plots in areas invaded and not invaded by IAP across the Italian Adriatic dunes has been used and the recorded species have been classified in ecological guilds. In order to explore the effect of plant community composition and distances from dune paths on the diagnostic species cover, a Random Forest regression model has been fitted. The results revealed that three main critical thresholds can be detected concerning IAP total cover, IAP Oenothera stucchii Soldano abundance and the distance from dune paths and they work differently in shifting and transition dunes. The identification of such cut-off points provides useful insights for an array of actions to preserve the biodiversity of the Mediterranean coastal dunes.

Global change threatens alpine biodiversity and its effects vary across habitat types and biogeographic regions. We explored vegetation changes over the last 20 years on two Mediterranean alpine calcareous grasslands in central Apennines (Italy): stripped grasslands (EUNIS code E4.436) with Sesleria juncifolia growing on steep slopes, and wind edge swards (EUNIS code E4.42) with Carex myosuroides. Based on a re-visitation of 25 vegetation plots of 4 × 4 m, we assessed changes in overall and endemic plant species cover and richness by nonparametric Kruskal–Wallis test. We explored changes in structure and ecology using growth forms and Landolt indicators for temperatures. We identified species’ contribution to temporal changes using the similarity percentage procedure (SIMPER). The results evidenced a significant decline in all species cover and richness on both plant communities with a significant decline in alpine and endemic species and in hemicryptophytes with rosette and scapose ones on stripped grasslands, as well as a decline in subalpine and suffruticose chamaephytes species on wind edge swards. Such biodiversity loss, so far observed only in the warmest and Southern Mediterranean summits of Europe, is likely attributable to the combined effect of higher temperatures; the increase in the vegetative period; and the decrease in water availability, which is particularly severe in calcareous regions. Our study suggested the vulnerability of the analyzed alpine ecosystems to global change and the importance of monitoring activities to better understand vegetation trends and adaptation strategies in subalpine, alpine, and nival ecosystems.

Beach litter accumulation patterns are influenced by biotic and abiotic factors, as well as by the distribution of anthropogenic sources. Although the importance of comprehensive approaches to deal with anthropogenic litter pollution is acknowledged, integrated studies including geomorphologic, biotic, and anthropic factors in relation to beach debris accumulation are still needed. In this perspective, Species Distribution Models (SDMs) might represent an appropriate tool to predict litter accumulation probability in relation to environmental conditions. In this context, we explored the applicability of a SDM–type modelling approach (a Litter Distribution Model; LDM) to map litter accumulation in coastal sand dunes. Starting from 180 litter sampling plots combined with fine–resolution variables, we calibrated LDMs from litter items classified either by their material type or origin. We also mapped litter accumulation hotspots. LDMs achieved fair-to-good predictive performance, with LDMs for litter classified by material type performing significantly better than models for litter classified by origin. Accumulation hotspots were mostly localized along the beach, by beach accesses, and at river mouths. In light of the promising results achieved by LDMs in this study, we conclude that this tool can be successfully applied within a coastal litter management context.

We analyzed plant functional diversity (FD) and redundancy (FR) in Mediterranean high-mountain communities to explore plant functional patterns and assembly rules. We focused on three above-ground plant traits: plant height (H), a good surrogate of competition for light strategies, and specific leaf area (SLA) and leaf dry matter content (LDMC), useful indicators of resource exploitation functional schemes. We used the georeferenced vegetation plots and field-measured plant functional traits of four widely spread vegetation types growing on screes, steep slopes, snowbeds and ridges, respectively. We calculated Rao’s FD and FR followed by analysis of standardized effect size, and compared FD and FR community values using ANOVA and the Tukey post hoc test. Assemblage rules varied across plant communities and traits. The High FRH registered on snowbeds and ridges is probably linked to climatic filtering processes, while the high FDH and low FDSLA and FDLDMC on steep slopes could be related with underlying competition mechanisms. The absence of FD patterns in scree vegetation pinpoint random assembly processes which are typical of highly unstable or disturbed ecosystems. Improved knowledge about the deterministic/stochastic processes shaping species coexistence on high mountain ecosystems should help researchers to understand and predict vegetation vulnerability to environmental changes.

Mountain ecosystems are vulnerable because of land-use and climate change. In this study, we performed a re-visitation study using historical and newly collected vegetation plots to explore the primary trends in the floristic, ecological, and structural features of Mediterranean Pinus mugo krummholz over past decades. The plant community composition over time (1992 vs. 2016–17) was analyzed by a detrended correspondence analysis followed by a statistical comparison of time steps and an analysis of the contribution of each species to temporal differences. Ecological and structural changes were analyzed by a permutational multivariate analysis of variance followed by a post hoc comparison. We observed relevant changes in the floristic composition, structure, and ecological characteristics of Pinus mugo scrub. Some subalpine and treeline species that characterize the early stages of Pinus mugo succession declined as several warm-adapted species increased. Furthermore, these changes were most likely due to the natural evolution of high-mountain krummholz combined with a thermophilization process occurring in alpine habitats. In contrast, a small group of cold-adapted species also increased, probably because the patchy spatial pattern of Pinus mugo scrubs gives rise to “mesic patches” in a matrix of arid grasslands. The re-visitation approach adopted for long-term analysis in this study can potentially be applied to other mountainous regions to better understand long-term ecological changes in high alpine vegetation.