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The present work is aimed at presenting the data, methods and criteria that are being used for the assessment of ecosystem collapse risk in Italy.

The Vegetation Prodrome of Italy was promoted in 2012 by the Italian “Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea Protection”, in collaboration with the “Italian Society of Botany”, to provide a comprehensive and systematic catalogue and description of Italian plant communities. The Prodrome that is presented in this paper is the first full organic synthesis of the vegetation of Italy at the alliance syntaxonomic level. It fulfils several needs, the main one being a unified and comprehensive national framework that may make an important contribution to the definition of the European Vegetation Prodrome. Syntaxonomy, as well as taxonomy, is sometimes based on considerations that may in part diverge: several authors tend to favour models that are divisive or aggregative to a greater or lesser extent in terms of flora, biogeography and ecology. These different points of view stimulate the scientific debate and allow the adoption of a framework that is more widely supported. The Prodrome includes 75 classes, 2 subc...

This work provides an overview of plant diversity in the municipality of Rome (Italy) through an assessment of the flora in urban and suburban sectors of the city. It is aimed at providing the knowledge required to support proactive action for plant conservation. On the basis of a literature-derived catalogue and of an extensive survey campaign, the flora was investigated in terms of conservation interest; habitat types and locations that require protection measures were identified according to the occurrence of valuable native plants. Valuable species exclusive of the urban sector are threatened by the compaction trend affecting the urban fabric. Such species occur mainly in ruderal environments and fallows of archaeological sites and urban parks, near river courses and in remnants of natural forests. Valuable species exclusive of the suburban sector are threatened by urban sprawl. They occur prevalently in wet environments of the subcoastal strip and in coastal sands, Mediterranean maquis, tuffaceous go...

Semi-natural dry grasslands are habitats of high conservation concern. These ecosystems have not been extensively explored in the Tyrrhenian sector of the Italian peninsula, particularly in the Submediterranean climatic region. In order to address this issue and to define the synecology, syndynamics and syntaxonomy of calcareous grasslands in this area, we considered 127 phytosociological releves. Our sampling was performed in the Lazio region according to a stratified sampling scheme based on homogeneous land units, defined by means of an ecological land classification process. We analyzed the vegetation data using multivariate methods. Two new associations, whose typical aspects occur in the mesotemperate phytoclimatic belt, were identified:Erysimo pseudorhaetici-Dasypyretum villosi (Taenianthero-Aegilopion) and Scorpiuro muricati-Brometum erecti (Phleo-Bromion). Phytoclimatic belts within the Submediterranean region cause a significant degree of differentiation within Scorpiuro-Brometum, which...

The aim of this paper is to document plant diversity in the metropolitan area of Rome (Italy) by providing a comprehensive inventory of the present-day vascular flora and an overview of its composition and species diversity. We compiled the floristic catalogue by including all vascular plant entities that occur spontaneously within the administrative boundaries of the Rome municipality. The data, which were gathered from extensive field surveys, from a broad review of the literature and from herbaria records, were updated and integrated in a comprehensive account. The inventory of the flora of metropolitan Rome lists 1649 entities, from 139 families and 677 genera. The flora contains 228 taxa that are non-native to the Italian flora, 81 of which are established in the study area. The overview of flora reveals a remarkable species diversity and outlines the main characteristics of the flora of Rome, which may be summarized as (1) a large number of taxa of high conservation value which occur in remnants of near-natural vegetation, (2) the loss or decline of some species, particularly of native freshwater plants, (3) a remarkably high native species richness within the urban area, which includes many native woody species and (4) a rich ruderal flora, prevalently composed of native species that are well adapted to human disturbance, along with a variety of taxa of non-native or uncertain origin. The large set of data and the overview presented in this paper represent a fundamental framework for future research and for the conservation of plant diversity in metropolitan Rome.

Two years after its official start, the national vegetation database VegItaly, a collaborative project supported by the Italian scientific community and developed by a large group of scientists, is presented. This article offers a concise overview of the content of the database, currently consisting of 31,100 vegetation plot, including published and unpublished data. Some basic statistics are analysed; for example, data distribution in space and time, represented vegetation types expressed as physiognomic categories. Although rather young and still in progress, VegItaly already contains data from all the Italian regions and stands as an optimal candidate for the development of an Italian national vegetation database. Its main goals,theoretical basis, technical features, functionalities and recent progresses are outlined, showing glimpses of future prospects.

The most commonly used old‐growth forest indicators are structural attributes; nevertheless, they do not necessarily represent the biodiversity value of old‐growth forests. The aim of this study is to analyse the relationships between species richness data of different taxa and structural indicators of old‐growth and to identify taxonomic/functional groups, species and structural attributes that may be used as indicators of old‐growth. To achieve this goal we sampled forest structure, vascular plants, lichens, bryophytes, fungi, saproxylic beetles and birds in mature and old‐growth stands in southern Italy. We calculated Spearman’s correlation coefficients between species richness data and structural attributes. Analyses of indicator species, co‐occurrences and two‐way clusters were performed on the multi‐taxonomic list. The group of vascular plants most significantly correlated with other groups in terms of species richness; furthermore, it displays the highest proportion of between‐group co‐occ...

Cynosurion cristati grasslands are semi‐natural habitats that have developed on mesotrophic soils with a good water supply and are found from the basal up to the mountain vegetation belts. Differences between the various communities of these grasslands in the European continent have not been fully investigated; in Italy, there is a lack of knowledge of the mesophilous pastures in the central and southern Apennines. In order to shed light on the Cynosurion hay meadows and grasslands in the central Apennines, we considered phytosociological data from the Lepini and Prenestini mountains (central Italy, Tyrrhenian sector): 58 original releves and a synoptic table containing similar associations throughout the Italian peninsula were analysed using multivariate methods (hierarchical classifications and principal coordinates analysis). Two new associations were distinguished: Hordeum bulbosum meadows, grazed after being mown (Trifolio molinerii–Hordeetum bulbosi), and heavily grazed, unmown pastures wit...