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Ozognathus cornutus(LeConte, 1859) is recorded on the invasivealien tree Robinia pseudocacia L.(Fabaceae) in an urban areain Italy. The species has already been reported in two other Italian regions, but this is the first record for the Sardinian fauna. Due to the great adaptability of this alienspecies and the increasingly cosmopolitan trend, we suggest monitoringit with caution forearly detection and to plan an appropriate rapid management response.

Publisher Copyright: © This dataset is made available under the Open Database License (http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/). The Open Database License (ODbL) is a license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use this Dataset while maintaining this same freedom for others, provided that the original source and author(s) are credited In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of vascular flora alien to Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations, exclusions, and status changes for Italy or for Italian administrative regions. Nomenclatural and distribution updates published elsewhere are provided as Suppl. material 1.

Land-use intensification exacerbates landscape fragmentation, increasing the negative effects on biodiversity. In this context, the biodiversity value of Trees Outside Forests (TOF; scattered trees, tree lines and small woodlots) is often overlooked by landscape planning and conservation programs, which typically focus on protecting larger and more intact areas. More empirical studies on taxa inhabiting TOF are needed to support and promote their conservation in human-altered lands. However, we are not aware of any study focusing on multiple taxa living in small woodlots outside forests (SWOFs) in the Mediterranean basin. We investigated how diversity patterns of multiple taxa in SWOFs respond to a land-use intensification gradient, from natural areas to more disturbed ones (agricultural and urban areas), in a Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot. We explored the influence of land-use types on species richness and composition of vascular plants and six ground-dwelling invertebrate groups (pseudoscorpions, spiders, darkling beetles, rove beetles, ground beetles, and ants). Species composition was more sensitive than species richness to land-use change, highlighting the need to consider a suitable measure for interpreting ecological processes. We observed a strong influence of land use embedding SWOFs on the mean composition and beta diversity of taxa: land-use intensification led to a general homogenization of diversity patterns, especially among agricultural and urban areas. In our study area, vascular plants responded more sensitively to land-use change than invertebrates. For most invertebrates: the higher the land-use intensity, the lower the species composition dissimilarity due to the dominance of good dispersers or disturbance-tolerant species. More vagile species and disturbance-tolerant species can move across open habitats and colonize new areas, reducing compositional differences and potentially boosting species pools. We demonstrated that SWOFs play a key role in supporting viable populations of invertebrates, also in human-altered lands, underlining the need to promote their conservation in this Mediterranean fragmented landscape to avoid homogenization from driving a generalized biodiversity loss.

The functional response of natural patches to surrounding land-use changes is strongly related to variations in functional traits of coexisting species. To exemplify the effects on species of a general pattern of land-use intensification mountains-coastland, we investigated the variation of a key plant trait - seed mass - in small woodlots located along a land-use intensification gradient for two common species (Asparagus albus and Asparagus acutifolius) in the Mediterranean areas. Moreover, along this gradient, we also explored the relationship between seed mass variation and different environmental filters. Along the gradient, A. acutifolius seed mass decreased from natural and semi-natural to urban and artificial areas (higher to lower elevation), whereas A. albus seed mass increased along the same gradient, with heavier seed in patches located in the urban and artificial areas than in those located in natural and semi-natural areas. At intra-specific level, A. acutifolius seeds were significantly different at the extremes of the gradient (natural and semi-natural vs urban and artificial areas), while A. albus showed significant differences both between natural and semi-natural areas and urban and artificial areas, and between agricultural and urban and artificial areas, revealing more sensitiveness to land-use change. The land-use type influenced seed mass variability: in the small patches located in natural and semi-natural areas and in agricultural ones, we observed for both species a higher seed mass variability, being highest in the agricultural areas, while we observed a limited variability in urban and artificial areas, suggesting a homogenization in terms of seed mass within and across species in human-altered areas. Environmental drivers on the seed mass of the two species showed an opposite trend in relation to biotic, topographic and bioclimatic variables. We observed that for two common Mediterranean species, land-use type influenced one of the most important plant functional traits (i.e., seed mass), leading to a reduction of intraspecific variability in artificial context. Understanding how and why these relations occur could improve our capacity to find adaptive strategies for environmental management.

Urbanization directly and indirectly impacts biodiversity to the extent that it is considered one of the main causes of biotic homogenization and extinction. However, urban green areas can act as reservoir of biodiversity, and knowledge regarding species distribution in such contexts is crucial to define appropriate conservation and management strategies. Since inventories of species are generally time-consuming and costly, a commonly used approach consists in the use of surrogate species. However, studies investigating the effectiveness of surrogate species in urban environments still seem to be under-represented. In this research, we investigated the biodiversity of ants, plants, and carabid beetles in six different green areas within the urban area of the city of Trieste. The role of vascular plants as a potential surrogate for the diversity of ants and carabid beetles has been tested, investigating the influence of the environmental variables (dead wood, litter, anthropic disturbance, bare soil, bedrocks and rocks) on these relationships. Patterns of species richness and complementarity were compared among the sampled sites and their correlations were tested with Mantel tests and Co-Correspondence Analysis (Co-CA). Results pointed out that even disturbed and isolated sites within the urbanised matrix can sustain a high diversity of species of ants, carabids and plants, while in the semi-natural sites intermediate diversity levels were found. Plants were found to correlate directly with the diversity of ants; on the contrary, carabid species composition resulted only indirectly influenced by vascular plants, confirming the key role of abiotic variables in determining carabid diversity. Co-CA showed a clear distinction between forested and semi-natural environments and more open and disturbed environments. Furthermore, the Co-CA highlighted that the considered environmental variables (particularly dead wood, anthropic disturbance, rocks and litter) can significantly influence the distribution of analyzed taxa. Our results highlight the important role of urban green areas within the urban matrix as source of biodiversity and, furthermore, once more, support the role of vascular plants as meaningful surrogate for the diversity of ants and carabids.

We assessed the changes in community-weighted mean (CWM) and variability of specific leaf area (SLA) and leaf area (LA) of different Mediterranean shrub communities along an elevation gradient in the island of Sardinia (Italy). Furthermore, we explored the relative contribution of species turnover and intraspecific variation to shifts in CWM values along the gradient. Forty sampling units (5 × 5 m) were selected in a probabilistic way along a 1300 m elevation gradient which crossed four thermotypes (thermometric belts). Leaf traits were measured in each sampling unit. ANOVA and a trend test for monotonic changes in variance were used to assess, respectively, CWM differences and variability in both the leaf traits across thermotypes. Variance decomposition of CWM values was used to identify the role of inter- and intraspecific variation. SLA and LA responded differently along the studied gradient in terms of abundance-weighted mean values and variability: CWM of SLA showed the lowest values in the driest thermotype, while LA in the more humid one; SLA variability showed a significant increasing trend with increased water availability, while LA variability did not show any pattern. The contribution of intraspecific trait variation was significant for both the leaf traits, but higher for SLA, where negative covariation between inter- and intraspecific variation was detected. We highlight the importance of simultaneously considering measurements of both leaf traits to understand the functional response of communities in Mediterranean environments. Moreover, neglecting intraspecific variation in leaf traits, even along steep gradients with relevant species compositional changes, can result in the underestimation of the amount of trait variation in response to environmental changes.

Italy is among the European countries with the greatest plant diversity due to both a great environmental heterogeneity and a long history of man–environment interactions. Trait-based approaches to ecological studies have developed greatly over recent decades worldwide, although several issues concerning the relationships between plant functional traits and the environment still lack sufficient empirical evaluation. To draw insights on the association between plant functional traits and direct and indirect human and natural pressures on the environmental drivers, this article summarizes the existing knowledge on this topic by reviewing the results of studies performed in Italy adopting a functional trait approach on vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens. Although we recorded trait measurements for 1418 taxa, our review highlighted some major gaps in plant traits knowledge: Mediterranean ecosystems are poorly represented; traits related to belowground organs are still overlooked; traits measurements for bryophytes and lichens are lacking. Finally, intraspecific variation has been little studied at community level so far. We conclude by highlighting the need for approaches evaluating trait–environment relationship at large spatial and temporal scales and the need of a more effective contribution to online databases to tie more firmly Italian researchers to international scientific networks on plant traits.

The modern concept of plant communities is still debated, both from a theoretical and an applied point of view. The Special Issue (SI) “Plant community ecology: from theory to practice” is dedicated to this discussion, basing the selected papers on the concept that if practice is not backed up by theory, erroneous results can be produced. Heterogeneous in terms of approaches and topics, in this SI, papers share cross-cutting issues dealing with the importance of the community approach and the variation that we observe in changing the scale of observation. The SI includes eight papers, ranging from local applications to national assessments, and is articulated in three main topics: methods, conservation, and global threats and challenges.

Biological and ecological investigations of islands are crucial to explain ecosystem functioning. Many studies on island biodiversity are carried out on oceanic islands. In contrast, information on continental islands, such as those in the Mediterranean Sea, is very often fragmented in space and time. Here, a synopsis of the Orchidaceae of Sardinia is presented based on literature surveys and recent botanical field studies. Our final list comprises of 64 species and 14 genera: thirteen species and subspecies were recognized as endemic and four new species were recorded for the flora of the island: Anacamptis palustris (Jacq.) R.M. Bateman, Pridgeon & M.W. Chase; Himantoglossum hircinum (L.) Spreng; Orchis italica Poir.; and Platanthera kuenkelei subsp. kuenkelei var. sardoa R.Lorenz, Akhalk., H.Baumann, Cortis, Cogoni & Scrugli. This orchid richness reflects the geological history of the island that was linked to the mainland several times, facing long periods of isolation. We also discuss a critical point-of-view of the biodiversity shortfalls still problematic for insular orchids. Indeed, within the Mediterranean Basin, the greatest amount of endemism occurs mainly on large islands, and, despite a long history of botanical exploration in European countries, many of them are scarcely investigated. This annotated synopsis shows the potential of continental islands to understand trends in ecology and evolution. Further studies are required to complete our knowledge of the orchid diversity on continental islands in order to propose scientific-based conservation programs to preserve these unique taxa.

Small-scale landforms influence plant species richness, but their mechanisms and effects in semi-natural dry grasslands have been poorly investigated. In this study we compared vascular plant richness, species composition, plant traits, soil properties and biomass nutrient content of convex (hillocks) and concave (hollows) karst landforms in a mountain pasture of the Central Apennines (Italy), at a small spatial scale (1 m2 plots). We found hillocks had significantly higher species richness than hollows. On hillocks, smaller Specific Leaf Area and Lateral Width, together with greater allocation of resources to Below-Ground Organs, indicated lower water availability, whereas hollows had deeper (thus moister), more acidic and more fertile soils, with aboveground plant biomass displaying higher nutrient levels. Partial correlation and regression tree models suggested that fine-scale richness patterns were not directly determined by abiotic properties, but were rather the result of competition levels associated with the cover of Agrostis capillaris (=A. tenuis) – a calcifuge and drought-sensitive grass able to achieve dominance only in hollows. The higher functional convergence exhibited by hollows suggests that A. capillaris is a strong competitor both above- and below-ground, mediating the effects of topography by imposing a biotic filter. On hillocks, competition is released by lower levels of available soil water in summer and higher soil pH, resulting in higher species richness and a more functionally divergent assemblage.

Global changes in the Anthropocene are unprecedented in history. They are closely linked to the use of the soil, the sea and the exploitation of natural resources and in turn determine important changes in the values and socio-cultural behavior of entire populations. In this context, the focus on the environmental dimension is the main way to govern the city and territory. In this sense, the environmental assets through the criterion of participation in decision-making processes, the identification and assessment of reasonable plan/program alternatives through the construction of forecast scenarios related to the evolution of the state of the environment constitutes the spatial planning paradigm, from the municipal level implementation strategy and the metropolitan level strategic one. Although in fact all Italian metropolitan cities are oriented towards adopting strategic and sustainable development models, capable of fighting the consumption of soil and natural resources in general, these have not always correspondence in an approach that specific environmental assessments part of the plan process and therefore functional for future governance choices. In this context, the objective of this work is to describe the case of the metropolitan city of Cagliari highlighting how the environmental dynamic and assets should be considered into its (actually in defining phase) strategic plan.

According to projects and practices that the Italian botanists and ecologists are carrying out for bringing “more nature in the city”, new insights for a factual integration between ecological perspectives and more consolidated aesthetic and agronomic approaches to the sustainable planning and management of urban green areas are provided.

Despite the importance for scientific and conservation purposes, the knowledge of the Italian territory is far from exhaustive. New chorological data for 87 vascular taxa regarding the central-southern part of Italy and its two main islands (Sicilia and Sardegna) are presented. Among these taxa, Epilobium nummularifolium, Metrosideros excelsa, and Salvinia minima are recorded as casual aliens for the first time in Europe (excluding Azores and Madeira for M. excelsa), while Cyclamen balearicum and Polygala rupestris are reported for the first time and confirmed for Italian native flora, respectively. Furthermore, several taxa are new or confirmed at regional level. Finally, Lathyrus cirrhosus, Urginea fugax, and Linum tenuifolium are excluded from Italy, continental and peninsular Italy, and Sardegna, respectively.

The bryophytic flora has been widely studied in Atlantic coastal dune environments while bryological literature addressing the Mediterranean bryophytes is still scarce and fragmented, although they are an important component of this area, especially considering their ability to colonize and stabilize sandy soils. The aims of this study were: (i) to analyze the taxonomy, chorology and ecology of coastal dunes bryoflora; (ii) to analyze distribution patterns of bryophytic species along a coastal dune vegetation zonation. We used as coastal dune model system a particularly well-preserved study area of the Sardinian coast (Italy), which includes several habitats listed in European Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC. We conducted a general survey of the area and a random sampling. A total of 20 bryophytic species were detected most of which were acrocarpous mosses and, to a lesser extent, pleurocarpous and liverworts. Most bryophytes are pioneer colonizers, reflecting their adaptation to environments with high levels of stress/disturbance conditions such as those of coastal dunes. Finally, in this study we described for the first time how bryophytic species are distributed along a Mediterranean coastal dune vegetation zonation, focusing also on their chorological and ecological characteristics and on how they seem to follow the sea-land gradient, probably in response to different environmental conditions developing along this gradient.

Even if the ecological role of trees outside forests (TOF) is acknowledged, few studies provide an exhaustive census and define their principal characteristics, considering not only the patch size but also the effect of the surrounding land-use type on TOF biodiversity. Using a multiphase sampling design, we provided a map showing the spatial distribution of small woodlots outside forest (SWOF), a type of TOF, embedded in different land-use types in Sardinia, a Mediterranean hotspot of biodiversity conservation. Once located and mapped, we investigated the differences among SWOFs enclosed in different land-use types, in terms of vegetation structure and plant species richness (native and alien), searching for indicator species able to characterize SWOFs located in different land-use types. Hence, we explored the effect of environmental factors and vegetation structure on native and alien contingent in SWOF's plant communities. Our findings indicated that SWOFs were widely spread along the land-use intensification gradient, both in natural and human-modified land-use types. The area covered by SWOFs increased following the gradient of land-use intensification, reaching the highest value in urban zones (0.85%), and the lower in agricultural and natural and semi-natural areas (0.31% and 0.23%, respectively). We found dissimilarities between SWOFs located in different land-use types in terms of species richness, composition and indicator species, both native and alien. Notably, the contribution of alien species to the overall diversity was low both in natural and human-modified land-uses. Nevertheless, alien and native taxa showed different responses to environmental drivers: alien taxa were not affected by landscape variables, while the native ones were significantly influenced by all investigated environmental drivers and by the structural complexity of vegetation. SWOFs embedded in human-altered areas, in particularly in agricultural land-use, show good levels of naturalness: these results indicate that SWOFs represent an opportunity for natural conversion and rewilding of altered ecosystems. Small woodlands outside the forest can be the pillars to build and extend the green infrastructure network in both natural and modified land-uses, delivering important benefits for ecosystem services, and offering nature-based solutions to pamper fragmentation effects.

In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of vascular flora alien to Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations, exclusions, and status changes for Italy or for Italian administrative regions of taxa in the genera Bunias, Calocedrus, Calycanthus, Celosia, Clerodendrum, Convolvulus, Crassula, Cyclamen, Datura, Dicliptera, Eragrostis, Erigeron, Gamochaeta, Gazania, Impatiens, Kolkwitzia, Leucaena, Ludwigia, Medicago, Muscari, Nigella, Oenothera, Opuntia, Paulownia, Petroselinum, Phyllostachys, Physalis, Pseudosasa, Quercus, Reynoutria, Roldana, Saccharum, Sedum, Semiarundinaria, Senecio, Sisyrinchium, Solanum, Sporobolus, Tulipa, Vachellia, Verbena, and Youngia. Nomenclatural and distribution updates published elsewhere are provided as Suppl. material 1.

Despite that congruence across taxa has been proved as an effective tool to provide insights into the processes structuring the spatial distribution of taxonomic groups and is useful for conservation purposes, only a few studies on cross-taxon congruence focused on freshwater ecosystems and on the relations among vascular plants and lichens. We hypothesized here that, since vascular plants could be good surrogates of lichens in these ecosystems, it would be possible to assess the overall biodiversity of riparian habitats using plant data only. In this frame, we explored the relationship between (a) species richness and (b) community composition of plants and lichens in a wetland area located in central Italy to (i) assess whether vascular plants are good surrogates of lichens and (ii) to test the congruence of patterns of species richness and composition among plants and lichens along an ecological gradient. The general performance of plant species richness per se, as a biodiversity surrogate of lichens, had poor results. Nonetheless, the congruence in compositional patterns between lichens and vascular plants varied across habitats and was influenced by the characteristics of the vegetation. In general, we discussed how the strength of the studied relationships could be influenced by characteristics of the data (presence/absence vs. abundance), by the spatial scale, and by the features of the habitats. Overall, our data confirm that the more diverse and structurally complex the vegetation is, the more diverse are the lichen communities it hosts.

Understanding the effects of climate on biodiversity and its different levels of response to climatic variation is important for addressing conservation-based questions: the use of bioclimatic variables and species modelling tools is common in environmental, agricultural and biological sciences. Unfortunately, most of the ecological local studies are limited to the use of global data with coarse spatial resolutions, while fine‐grain climate data are necessary to capture environmental variability and perform reliable modelling. We propose a high-resolution dataset (40 m grid) of the suite of original coarse-grain bioclimatic variables proposed by WorldClim 2 for the island of Sardinia (Italy); variations amongst our dataset and WorldClim 2 were calculated and mapped to show the spatial distribution of differences between all pairs of variables. We observed relevant differences for the bioclimatic variables related to rainfall (mean RMSE = 39.79; mean nRMSE = 0.21) compared to the temperature ones (mean RMSE = 4.81; mean nRMSE = 0.11). Moreover, discrepancies are not evenly distributed in the territory: the greater differences correspond to the areas characterized by complex orographic systems. Results recommend caution in making ecological assessments based on bioclimatic variables derived from global data with coarse spatial resolutions in physiographically complex landscapes, especially in the Mediterranean regions, characterized by seasonal climatic variations and high levels of biodiversity and biogeographical complexity. These new data will support a new generation of research studies in a broad array of ecological applications at a much finer scale than previously possible.

In the Mediterranean region temporary ponds are classified among the most biologically and biogeographically interesting ecosystems. Despite their important ecological functions in those environments, bryophytes are neglected or undervalued in most monitoring and conservation actions. We analyzed the data to understand if (i) environmental variables had an influence on the composition of bryophytes in temporary ponds (dbRDA); (ii) there are differences among sites and ponds, in terms of species composition (PERMANOVA); (iii) bryophytes respond to the water table fluctuation, showing a typical small-scale spatial zonation and comprehend if there are species or life form/strategies typical of those belts (PCoA). Bryophytes are distributed in concentric belts (outer, central, inner) according to their tolerance to floods: we observed a gradient from the outer belt, mainly composed by colonist and perennial such as Pottiaceae and Brachytheciaceae, to the more humid inner one where annual shuttle such as Ricciaceae dominates. We found significant species associated with belts, such as Tortella squarrosa in the outer belt, Fossombronia caespitiformis in the central belt, and Riccia canaliculata in the inner belt. The presence of indicator species and the distribution of dominant life form/strategies in the belts allow to monitor over time the changes in the flood level.

Cross-taxon analyses can explain patterns of interaction between taxa and their application in conservation studies can drive management actions. In a coastal sand dune system characterized by a high human pressure, we explored the co-occurrence patterns between vascular plants and bryophytes, with a focus on how the occurrence of invasive alien species (IAS) can affect those taxa and their relationships. Species congruences were evaluated at the community level considering taxonomic and functional diversities. Predictive co-correspondence analysis (Co-CA) was applied to quantify the strength of vascular plant communities in predicting bryophytes species composition. The relationship between the composition of vascular plants and bryophytes was significant, even if weak. Altitude and percentage of bare soil cover are the environmental variables exerting greater influence on the two taxa. The presence of IAS affects communities in an opposite way: for vascular plants, species richness increases with the presence of invasive alien species, for bryophytes, IAS&rsquo, s presence has a low but significant negative influence, both on species richness and in terms of functional diversity. Results give elements for future studies on the effect of IAS on the bryophytes colonizing coastal sand dunes.

The lock and key hypothesis assumes that male and female genitalia match in a unique system to prevent interspecific crosses. This hypothesis is largely investigated in animals, while there is a distinct lack of studies on plants. Nevertheless, we expect the lock and key hypothesis could apply to plants with complex floral morphologies, such as orchids. Here we apply a comparative approach to examine the variation of floral functional traits in food- and sex-deceptive orchids. To understand if a specific deception strategy is related to a specific variation in floral traits evaluated the variation in sterile and fertile traits among species and subsequently examined the correlations between male and female reproductive organs of the same species with the aim of investigating the role of the lock and key hypothesis in deceptive orchids. Our results show that the functional morphology of fertile traits plays a pivotal role in limiting gene flow in species that grow in sympatry. In particular, it was observed that the Reproductive Standardisation Index (RSI) is significantly different in the two pollination strategies and that the correlation between pollinarium length and stigmatic cavity length is stronger in food-deceptive species when compared to the sex-deceptive species. These results reveal that the lock and key hypothesis contributes to maintain boundaries in plants with very complex floral morphology.

In this paper, we present a spatially explicit procedure for mapping and assessing coastal plant diversity value in the context of biodiversity monitoring and conservation planning. Our objective was to devise a replicable and easy to understand methodology framework, which can represent an expedient tool for coastal management and decision making at spatial scales between 1:25,000 and 1:50,000. For this purpose, we adopted a small number of key descriptors that refer to easily quantifiable information on species and habitats: plant species richness, species of conservation value, floristic consistency, habitat diversity, and habitats of conservation interest under the Council Directive 92/43/EEC. We built an expedient sampling strategy that combines systematic sampling by grid cells of fixed size with stratification per habitat type, and apply a plain equal weighting scoring system for assessing overall plant diversity. All floristic and habitat data were entered into a spatial database built within a GIS environment and referred to a 1 × 1 square km spatial grid overlaid on two selected test sites in southern Sardinia (Italy). The descriptors we chose were successful surrogates of plant diversity, as they were able to represent the known conservation importance of both test sites and of specific areas within them, both individually and in combination. In particular, our results show that integrating indicators at different levels of biodiversity enabled to represent aspects with marked differences in distribution as well as to compensate possible biases in data collection, as habitat data are more easily available than floristic information and spatially continuous even in less accessible areas. Being based on well-known criteria and policies, and on data that are most widely and consistently available, our assessment procedure proved effective and easily transferable, and provides a spatial reference framework for systematically evaluating and monitoring coastal plant diversity at national level and across the Mediterranean Basin.

In temperate climates, vegetation dynamics can dominate the fate of the badlands. In fact, in absence of disturbances such a grazing and burning, plant encroachment can condemn badlands to disappear. Thus, this type of badlands is either formed and developed under more arid conditions or due to some sort of mismanagement and misuse. This study provides an update on the denudation rate on this type of badlands (for a biancana badland in Central Italy, close to the ancient town of Siena). The result shows a denudation rate of 2 cm a−1. Hence, the biancana site resulted to have been formed starting from the XIV century. The climatic conditions were similar to the present one, even if cooler and wetter. Hence, plants could have easily colonized the erosion scars indicating that factors controlling the badland origin should be searched elsewhere. Anthropic action was explored with a deep insight into the medieval period. It resulted that (1) the plague depopulation (which kept peasant population very low for more than 50 years), (2) the change of the social structure in charge of the countryside management and (3) the need for the Siena republic to attract peasants concurred to the creations of favourable circumstances for the badlands formation from previous pastures and croplands. Similar factors can hold for many badlands, following local history.

In Italy, Platanus orientalis L. is judged as an endangered species by some authors and non-native by others: these contrasting assessments can mislead the prioritization of management actions to preserve the species and the riparian vegetation that is its host. Based on a multidisciplinary approach, including palaeobotanical and ecological information, we assessed its status in Italy including the ecological and conservation value of the riparian plant communities hosting it in the Cilento National Park (S-Italy). Palaeobotanical data showed that P. orientalis in Italy should be considered an archaeophyte. According to the ecological assessment of the riparian plant communities hosting P. orientalis, the presence of the species can be interpreted as an indicator of an unfavourable state for the conservation of riparian vegetation. Knowing the status of a species remains one of the first steps to take to correctly propose scientifically based solutions for the conservation of plant diversity. However, the...

The impacts of climate extremes on species, communities and ecosystems have become critical concerns to science and society. Under a changing climate, how restoration outcomes are affected by extreme climate variables is a largely unknown topic. We analyzed the effects of experimental factors (grazing and sowing of native species), extreme climate events (intense precipitation and extreme temperatures indexes) and their combination on the restoration progress of a dry, calcareous grassland in Tuscany (Italy) with a 1 year before/15 years continuous annual monitoring after, control/impact (BACI) experiment. Grazing had a beneficial effect on the diversity of the grassland, while sowing had a limited impact. The climatic index that most affected the entire plant community composition was the number of very heavy precipitation days. The interaction of grazing and extreme climatic indexes had a significant detrimental effect on restoration outcomes, increasing the cover of synanthropic and cCosmopolitan-sSubcosmopolitan generalist species and decreasing the cover of more valuable species such endemic species. In the richerst grazed plots, species richness showed a lower sensitivity to the average precipitation per wet day. but Iin grazed site, restoration outcomes can be negatively influenced by the intensification of precipitation and temperature extremes. In a context of progressive tropicalization of the Mediterranean area, to assist managers setting achievable restoration goals, restoration practitioners should consider that climate extremes might interfere with the beneficial effects of restoration practices.

Time is a key factor to understand the effects of disturbance on natural communities or ecosystems. In Mediterranean landscapes where nature and humans have been strongly intermingling since mid-Holocene the relationships between plant ecology and palaeoecology and their role for the interpretation of natural and anthropogenic changes still needs to be clearly understood. Ecology and palaeoecology are both investigating such problems but each of them cannot disentangle the specific role played by nature and by humans in shaping the present plant communities and landscapes. A new age of cooperation among researchers in ecology and palaeoecology is needed and the integration of these closely related but separated research fields is necessary to explain the resulting dynamic puzzle. Plant ecologists should avoid the oversimplification of the actual causes as the exclusive drivers of plant communities and landscapes and force the exploitation of the available data to generate and test new hypotheses for past present and future environmental reconstructions and management. Even when planning for the future biodiversity conservation we need to properly use the existing information about millennia of human effects on the natural biotas to properly set landscape management and conservation priorities.

The importance of the scale of observation in vegetation science has long been recognized. We have evaluated the effect of grain (plot dimension) on the detection of changes induced by shrubs cutting on plant composition of a calcareous grassland in Southern Tuscany (Italy). We conducted a 2-year before 2-year after-control-impact (BACI) field sampling design. We collected the cover of vascular plants using nested square quadrats with 0.5, 1 and 2 m sides. Any deviation of the restored plots from the control was analyzed by using the principal response curve (PRC) technique. Differences between the control and the restored plots, in time, accounted for 4.5, 3.3 and 7.4 of the between-plot variation in species composition, respectively for 0.25, 1 and 4 m 2 plots, but only the first PRC component of the largest scale was statistically significant. The results showed that the ability to differentiate the control from the restored plots, changed with increasing grain size although we did not obtain a monotonic behavior of the variance explained by the multivariate model. Including the assessment of scale dependence in the monitoring project appears useful and necessary to correctly evaluate the effects of restoration actions in a consistent way.

The collection and organization of distributional data is the first crucial stage of any conservation planning action: therefore the decline in field research has implications in both the systematic, floristic and conservation fields. The aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of data updating on conservation planning and priorities. Focusing on the short time frame ranging from 2006 to 2011, we present a case study showing the rate of increase of collected data (taxa and records) and the consequential effects on the definition of areas of priority interest for plant conservation (Important Plant Areas—IPAs). We gathered data on a total of 193 taxa and 849 records with a mean rate of increase of +97 % for taxa and +166 % for records (2006/2011). This increase caused a positive rate of change in high ranking cells (+78 %) defining IPAs, while the number of low ranking cells and no data cells slightly decreased (−12 and −8 %, respectively). Our results suggest that specific investment to complete the knowledge on the distribution of selected taxa (e.g. 193 taxa represent the 7.5 % of the total vascular flora of Sardinia) would dramatically reduce both the Linnean and Wallacean shortfalls and would allow robust conservation programs to preserve the diversity of the island. Updating the IPAs on a regular basis is a good example of a process that has a low impact as well as a big potential gain especially when field research can only be performed with low intensity and small monetary investments.

International audience; Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are the cornerstone for the future management of coastal ecosystemswith many vulnerability and hazard indexes developed for this purpose, especially in the engineering literature,but with limited studies that considered ecological implications within a risk assessment. Similarly, the conceptof prioritization of sites has been widely examined in biodiversity conservation studies, but only recently as aninstrument for territory management. Considering coastal plant diversity at the species and community levels,and their vulnerability to three main potential hazards threatening coastal areas (oil spills, Hazardous and NoxiousSubstances pollution, fragmentation of natural habitats), the objective of this paper is to define an easy-to-use approach to locate and prioritize the areas more susceptible to those stressors, in order to have a practical instrumentfor risk management in the ordinary and extra-ordinary management of the coastline. The procedurehas been applied at pilot areas in four Mediterranean countries (Italy, France, Lebanon and Tunisia). This approachcan provide policy planners, decision makers and local communities an easy-to-use instrument able tofacilitate the implementation of the ICZM (Integrated Coastal Zone Management) process in their territory.

The scientific subjects addressed in the research into badlands since the publication of Bryan and Yair's book (Bryan, R.B. and Yair, A. (Editors), 1982 Badland geomorphology and piping. Geo Books, Norwich, 408 pp.) are briefly analysed. With a steadily increasing number of papers per year, attention to some aspects, such as runoff generation, piping and the role of lithology and soils, varied, whereas the percentage of studies on erosion rates increased steadily over time. Vegetation was not a subject of research in early papers, as most of the papers dealing with vegetation were rather descriptive and published in local or limited-diffusion media, which contrasts with the present situation when about 40% of papers published in international journals about badlands address some aspect of vegetation. However, the growth in the attention paid to vegetation and erosion rates was not linked to any increase in papers dealing with badland reclamation. Badlands are now seen as a group of systems with some common features but diverse dynamics, depending mainly on climatic and lithological drivers. More attention should be paid in the future to investigating the evolution of these landforms over time, mostly through modelling studies, whereas emerging technologies foster detailed analyses that were not possible formerly. Although some badland areas determine on- and off-site environmental issues, others are spots of landscape diversity that merit protection rather than reclamation.

The goal of the Global strategy for plant conservation (GSPC) was to protect 50 % of the most important areas for plant diversity by 2010; such areas are defined as the most important places in the world for wild plant diversity, identified according to common criteria. Although the concept of complementarity is intrinsically included in the GSPC, it is not widely used in the IPA definition process. We compared the results of a criteria-based selection approach to the identification of the Important Plant Areas with those of a systematic conservation approach to assess the benefits of integrating these two methods. The criteria-based definition was composed of a ranking procedure that identified 351 top ranking cells containing high conservation value species/habitats and/or richness. The complementarity approach selected 265 cells. The results were compared in terms of beta-diversity and land cover. A weak, though significant association emerged between the results; moreover, the criteria-based approach unexpectedly proved to be more effective in selecting beta-diversity than the complementarity approach. In terms of land cover composition, the cells proposed by the two selection methods differed significantly, with the criteria-based approach selecting natural and seminatural areas and the complementarity approach selecting agricultural areas. The comparison of the two approaches that are used to define Important Plant Areas on a national scale demonstrated that the explicit inclusion of the systematic conservation approach in the IPA process may help to integrate the designation of IPAs, to locate critical areas and address the needed further investigations in selected zones.

Question: Which environmental variables best explain patterns in the vegetation of biancane badlands? What is the role of spatial scales in structuring the vegetation of biancane badlands within the agricultural matrix? Location: Five biancane badlands in Central Italy (Tuscany). Methods: An object-oriented approach on high-resolution multispectral images was used to classify physiognomic vegetation types in five biancane badlands. Within each badland, data on vascular plant species abundance were collected using a stratified random design. Variation partitioning based on partial redundancy analysis was used to evaluate the contribution of three sets of environmental predictors, recorded at the spatial scales of plot, patch and biancane badland in explaining patterns in plant community composition. Results: Environmental variables included in the final model ‐ electrical conductivity and carbon/nitrogen ratio (plot scale), shape index (patch scale) and area (biancane badland scale) ‐ accounted for 15.5% of the total variation in plant community composition. Soil characteristics measured at the plot level explained the majority of variation. In the smallest badlands, Bromus erectus perennial grasslands were absent, while annual grasslands, linked with harsh soil conditions (i.e. high soil salinity), were not affected by either the surface area of biancane badlands or by the soil nitrogen availability. Conclusions: The identification of the major predictors of patterns in remnant vegetation requires conducting investigations at multiple spatial scale. Management strategies should operate at different spatial scale, preventing any further reduction in the size of existing badlands and relying on habitat- instead of area-focused conservation practices.

Three hundred and twelve Important Plant Areas (IPAs) have been identified in Italy using a grid-based ranking system to pinpoint areas of high richness and conservation value, alongside the more frequently used expert-based selection of sites. Important Plant Areas are defined as the most important places in the world for wild plant diversity and need to be identified according to common criteria. The main methodological challenges are the lack of recent, easily accessible data for species and habitats and the definition of practical boundaries. The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC–CBD) aims to protect 50% of the most important areas for plant diversity and to conserve in situ 60% of the threatened species by 2010. To measure the extent to which the GSPC targets were fulfilled, we assessed the level of protection afforded to the IPAs and species. We identified 351 top ranking cells, which yielded a total of 312 IPAs, covering approximately 15% of Italy. More than 80% of the IPAs currently have some form of legal protection and over 60% of the selected species are included in the existing protected areas. The method we are proposing may be used where no systematic data collection program exists. The transition from grids to polygons is an “expert-based passage” that exploits different sources of information, such as species point locality data, vegetation maps and expert-based indications. IPAs fit into a wider conservation context and may be applied to the design of ecological networks, the zonation of existing protected areas and the definition of key biodiversity areas.

The biological species concept is founded in the presence of barriers that restrict gene flow, but species delimitation remain a vivid topic in orchids. In sexually deceptive Ophrys, the role of postmating barriers has traditionally been thought to be weak and, despite relevant morphological and ethological differences, only low levels of phylogenetic and genetic differentiation have been recorded. In contrast, not many studies have been focused on the relevance of different barriers in closely related species on islands. Using a morphological approach and experimental crosses to evaluate postmating barriers, we here analyse the distinctness of two sardinian endemic sister‐species, Ophrys annae and O. chestermanii, both currently referred to the O. bornmuelleri group. We found that the two endemics differ sustantially in 16 functional morphological traits. We further obtained asymmetric results from manual crosses suggesting that postmating barriers may reinforce the premating barriers. Our results suggest that in closely related species of Ophrys, gene flow is limited also by postmating barriers which contribute significantly to keeping the species reproductively isolated.

This study is focused on the selection of variables affecting lichen and bryophyte diversity in Mediterranean deciduous forests. Plots representing two forest types (Fagus sylvatica and Quercus cerris forests) and two forest continuity categories (old‐growth (OG) and non‐OG forests) were selected in the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park (Italy). The presence and the abundance of bryophytes and epiphytic lichens were recorded. Structural variables of the forests and vascular plant species richness have been used as predictors. A strong positive correspondence between the two groups of organisms was found. Higher species richness and the distribution of rare species are related to OG stands, while a qualitative (species composition) rather than a quantitative (species richness) difference between the two forest types was observed. Some species elsewhere considered as indicators of forest continuity, such as Lobaria pulmonaria, Antitrichia curtipendula, and Homalothecium sericeum, are associa...