Habitat monitoring in Europe is regulated by Article 17 of the Habitats Directive, which suggests the use of typical species to habitat conservation status. Yet, the Directive uses the term ...“typical” species but does not provide a definition, either for its use in reporting or for its use in impact assessments. To address the issue, an online workshop was organized by the Italian Society for Vegetation Science (SISV) to shed light on the diversity of perspectives regarding the different concepts of typical species, and to discuss the possible implications for habitat monitoring. To this aim, we inquired 73 people with a very different degree of expertise in the field of vegetation science by means of a tailored survey composed of six questions. We analysed the data using Pearson's Chi-squared test to verify that the answers diverged from a random distribution and checked the effect of the degree of experience of the surveyees on the results. We found that most of the surveyees agreed on the use of the phytosociological method for habitat monitoring and of the diagnostic and characteristic species to evaluate the structural and functional conservation status of habitats. With this contribution, we shed light on the meaning of “typical” species in the context of habitat monitoring.
This study provides a first step toward the knowledge of the alien-dominated and co-dominated plant communities present in Italy. The first ever checklist of the alien phytocoenoses described or ...reported in literature for the Italian territory has been compiled, produced by data-mining in national and local thematic literature. The resulting vegetation-type draft-list has been checked in the light of the most recent syntaxonomic documentation and updated with regards to syntaxonomy and nomenclature, with special reference to the frame proposed in the Italian Vegetation Prodrome. The list includes 27 vascular and one bryophyte vegetation classes, hosting 194 low rank alien-dominated
syntaxa
. The different vegetation types detected for each syntaxonomic class and macro-vegetation group, defined by physiognomical and ecological attributes, are discussed.
Coastal dunes are among habitats with the worst conservation status on a global, European and national scale. Monitoring and reporting are of strategic importance to determine the effectiveness of ...the implementation of Habitats Directive and to preserve the unique biodiversity heritage of the Italian dunes. In this study we show main results of the 4th National Report with specific reference to the macro-habitat "Coastal Sand Dunes and Inland Dunes", highlighting its updated current conservation status at the national and Biogeographical level. A comprehensive Working Group of territorial experts collected, updated, validated and integrated the data available for 11 Annex I Habitats, distributed in the Alpine, Continental and Mediterranean Biogeographical Regions. The conservation status was evaluated through the following criteria: geographic range, surface area, structure, functions, pressures, threats, conservation measures and prospects. Results highlighted the dramatically bad conservation status of Italian dune Habitats: the overall assessment reported 88% of habitats in bad conservation status and the remaining 12% is in inadequate conditions. Results showed a generalised threat and a worrying conservation status both on herbaceous and wooded communities, in particular in some relevant habitats, such as the shifting dunes. Main pressures and threats were linked to residential, commercial and industrial activities, as well as alien species. Although some of the changes in distribution and trends are probably deriving from more accurate and updated data, the alarming conservation status of Italian sand dunes requires a better knowledge of pressures and threats for further management actions and monitoring plans, inside and outside protected areas. Keywords: Continental Biogeographical Region, European guidelines, Mediterranean Biogeographical Region, national report, psammophilous vegetation, threats
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. Furthermore, three new combinations are proposed. Nomenclatural and distribution updates published elsewhere are provided as Suppl. material 1.
Progress towards green and autonomous energy sources includes exploiting living systems and biological tissue for harvesting electrical energy. Plant-microbial fuel cells (P-MFCs) have recently been ...identified as a promising energy source for continuously and indefinitely supplying autonomous electronic devices, such as, for example, sensor nodes. This paper reports the results of the characterization of microbial fuel cells supplied by pot plants in terms of harvestable electrical energy. The results show that electronic devices with a power consumption lower than 1mW can be easily operated continuously with the energy produced by P-MFCs. As test cases, P-MFCs have been used to power LEDs as well as a temperature and relative humidity sensor.
The seed-bank and the dynamics of a Polygonum hydropiper L. community were investigated. The study area is located along the Po river in the Central-West Po plane (Northern Italy), in Piedmont, near ...Alessandria. The seed-bank in the soil was investigated by means of a simplified procedure of seasonal sampling and germination tests while the dynamics of the Polygonum community was investigated within a permanent square. Results indicate that: i) The Polygonum hydropiper community has strong growth potential because it has a source of biodiversity in its reservoir of germinable seeds of different species. River overflows act both as disturbance and as vectors for propagules, selecting the species that can grow and develop within the vegetation, and the species that will be left as seeds in the soil; ii) species diversity and dominance vary with vegetation stage (seed bank, pioneer stages and mature stages); iii) two types of seed-bank were present in the soil we analysed: a transient one and a persistent one.
We describe plant communities occurring in an abandoned area in the northern Apennines using a phytosociological approach. We evaluate the biodiversity in and between the identified plant communities ...using the following indices: species richness, diversity, dominance and equitability. Ten vegetation types were identified in the study area. Because of the still active dynamics only three types were classified at the association level, while the other seven types were classified at alliance level. The α-diversity is generally high in all the identified plant communities. Two main secondary successions characterize the study area: a high hilly mesophilous succession (> 800 m above sea level where precipitation is more abundant) with Knautio drymeiae-Ostryetum carpinifoliae as final stage and a low hilly thermophilous succession (< 800 m above sea level where precipitation is less abundant) with Quercus pubescens woods as final stage. Trochiscantho-Fagetum represents the final stage of a third succession that develops above 1000 m above sea level. The study area is evolving towards the final stages of the three secondary successions. This will soon cause a loss of biodiversity at different levels: landscape, vegetation communities, flora and fauna. Grasslands and low shrub communities are the most threatened communities, occupying low percentages of the study area.
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