We explored the influence of climatic factors on diversity patterns of multiple taxa (lichens, bryophytes, and vascular plants) along a steep elevational gradient to predict communities' dynamics ...under future climate change scenarios in Mediterranean regions. We analysed (1) species richness patterns in terms of heat-adapted, intermediate, and cold-adapted species; (2) pairwise beta-diversity patterns, also accounting for its two different components, species replacement and richness difference; (3) the influence of climatic variables on species functional traits. Species richness is influenced by different factors between three taxonomic groups, while beta diversity differs mainly between plants and cryptogams. Functional traits are influenced by different factors in each taxonomic group. On the basis of our observations, poikilohydric cryptogams could be more impacted by climate change than vascular plants. However, contrasting species-climate and traits-climate relationships were also found between lichens and bryophytes suggesting that each group may be sensitive to different components of climate change. Our study supports the usefulness of a multi-taxon approach coupled with a species traits analysis to better unravel the response of terrestrial communities to climate change. This would be especially relevant for lichens and bryophytes, whose response to climate change is still poorly explored.
To track future climate space, seed dispersal will be essential for plants, but dispersal ability is rarely measured or incorporated into species distribution models. Species distribution models ...(SDMs) can rank habitat suitability at a local scale, and they may be a valuable conservation planning tool for rare, patchily distributed species. Dispersal is essential for species to survive the threats of habitat destruction and climate change. Combining dispersal ability and habitat suitability at the landscape scale is important to understand and predict species spatial responses to environmental change. This study analyzed future species distributions based on habitat suitability and dispersal scenarios for 7 endangered and vulnerable taxa, using SDM and dispersal ability to predict the range of species distribution across central Italy in the near future 2050. Species distribution models (Ensembles of Small Models, ESMs) were carried out using 19 bioclimatic environmental variables downloaded from WorldClim 1.4. The study identified the most suitable area for this species in the central Apennines. The innovation of this study is the combination of SDMs with dispersal ability based on measured traits of local populations of rare species and subspecies. The main results show a combination of climate change with dispersal ability strongly affects the future potential distribution of the rare species. Thus, obtaining suitable and accessible areas in the near future possible is possible to identify the high suitable sites for the reinforcement of the natural population, ensuring habitat connectivity.
Trait‐based ecology has already revealed main independent axes of trait variation defining trait spaces that summarize plant adaptive strategies, but often ignoring intraspecific trait variability ...(ITV). By using empirical ITV‐level data for two independent dimensions of leaf form and function and 167 species across five habitat types (coastal dunes, forests, grasslands, heathlands, wetlands) in the Italian peninsula, we found that ITV: (i) rotated the axes of trait variation that define the trait space; (ii) increased the variance explained by these axes and (iii) affected the functional structure of the target trait space. However, the magnitude of these effects was rather small and depended on the trait and habitat type. Our results reinforce the idea that ITV is context‐dependent, calling for careful extrapolations of ITV patterns across traits and spatial scales. Importantly, our study provides a framework that can be used to start integrating ITV into trait space analyses.
By using empirical data for two independent dimensions of leaf form and function and 167 species across five habitat types, we show that including intraspecific trait variability in a trait space: (i) rotates the axes of trait variation of the target trait space, (ii) increases the variance explained by these axes and (iii) modifies the functional structure of the trait space. However, these effects were rather small and strongly trait‐ and habitat‐dependent.
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.
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.
Wildfires are currently one of the most important environmental problems, as they cause disturbance in ecosystems generating environmental, economic and social costs. The Sentinel-2 from Copernicus ...Program (Sentinel satellites) offers a great tool for post-fire monitoring. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the potential of Sentinel-2 in a peculiar mountainous landscape by measuring and identifying the burned areas and monitor the short-term response of the vegetation in different ‘burn severity’ classes. A Sentinel-2 dataset was created, and pre-processing operations were performed. Relativized Burn Ratio (RBR) was calculated to identify ‘burn scar’ and discriminate the ‘burn severity’ classes. A two-year monitoring was carried out with areas identified based on different severity classes, using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to investigate the short-term vegetation dynamics of the burned habitats; habitats refer to Annex I of the European Directive 92/43/EEC. The study area is located in ‘Campo Imperatore’ within the Gran Sasso – Monti della Laga National Park (central Italy). The first important result was the identification and quantification of the area affected by fire. The RBR allowed us to identify even the less damaged habitats with high accuracy. The survey highlighted the importance of these Open-source tools for qualitative and quantitative evaluation of fires and the short-term assessment of vegetation recovery dynamics. The information gathered by this type of monitoring can be used by decision-makers both for emergency management and for possible environmental restoration of the burned areas.
The Majella National Park (MNP) is a tangible example of the interaction between
ex-situ
and
in-situ
conservation of endemic, rare, or endangered species at a Regional level in the context of the ...Italian national parks. The MNP has the facilities and carries out activities for the conservation of plant biodiversity: it includes botanical gardens, a seed bank, a nursery, and a network of “guardian farmers”, an authentic “granary” in which to protect and conserve biodiversity in and around the Majella massif (central Italy).
Plant communities dominated by
Petrosedum
ser.
Rupestria
in Italy have always been referred to the
Sedo albi-Scleranthetea biennis
Br.-Bl. 1955 class. This group of species was also often found more ...or less abundant in the garrigue and pasture vegetation. Some unusual plant communities dominated by
Petrosedum rupestre
(L.) P.V.Heath with a conspicuous presence of typical species of scree vegetation were found and sampled in the Abruzzo region, on more or less mobile debris. In order to classify such communities, syntaxonomic, structural, chorological and ecological analyses have been performed. All the
Petrosedum
ser.
Rupestria
dominated communities reported in Italy have been compared with the sampled vegetation. A new perennial pioneer association, linked to more or less mobile detrital substrata of the hilly and lower-mountane belts of the calcareous Central Apennines has been here described with the name
Linario purpureae-Petrosedetum rupestris
. Based on the syntaxonomic analysis, this association has been included in the
Linarion purpureae
alliance (
Scrophulario bicoloris-Helichrysetalia italici
order). The
Linario-Petrosedetum
has been divided into two subassociations: a typical one named
petrosedetosum rupestris
and a thermophilous one of the lower altitudes named
teucrietosum flavi
. The study revealed the originality of such communities and their appropriate classification in the
Thlaspietea rotundifolii
class. This is the first record in Italy of a
Petrosedum
ser.
Rupestria
-rich community framed in the scree vegetation class.
High-mountain ecosystems are spots of plant diversity in which species composition and traits depict a long evolutionary history of species adaptation to steep environmental gradients. We ...investigated the main trends in plant species composition and reproductive and dispersal traits (pollen vector, diaspore appendages, dispersal of diaspores and fruit type) in central Mediterranean summits in relation to environmental factors (altitude, aspect, debris cover and slope). Based on 114 plots, with floristic and environmental data collected in the year 2016 on alpine calcareous grasslands in the central Apennines, we explored how species composition varies in relation to environmental factors using CCA (canonical correspondence analysis). Then, we analyzed the relationships among species presence, the occurrence of reproductive and dispersal traits and environmental variables. We used for this analysis the fourth-corner model approach. Our results highlight a consistent response of floristic composition and of structural and ecological characteristics to environmental gradients, with elevation and debris cover being the most important ones. The environmental characteristics of the analyzed ecosystems (e.g., steep slopes and harsh environments) combined with the persistence of perennial plant species already present in each stand, the high precision of pollination and the prevalence of short-distance dissemination strategies should allow the calcareous endemic plant communities of the analyzed Mediterranean summits to be conserved at least for a mid-term period slowing down the expansion of the warm-adapted species, less adapted to the local environmental constrains.
Seed ecology of Saxifraga italica Di Cecco, Valter; Di Musciano, Michele; Frattaroli, Anna Rita ...
Folia geobotanica,
2019/6, Letnik:
54, Številka:
1/2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Knowledge about seed germination ecology is necessary for development of protocols for in ex situ conservation and in situ restoration of rare species. Here we investigate the effect of temperature, ...light, GA3 and cold storage in the germination niche of Saxifraga italica (Saxifragaceae), and endemic species of Central Apennines (Italy). Several temperatures, both in dark and light conditions, and the effect of pre-chilling (60 days at 5°C) were investigated. Light was varied by changing photon flux, both in intensity and duration. The intensity of light was tested from 1.28 to 26.87 µmol (photon)·m⁻²·s⁻¹, and pre-treatment with light was carried out by exposing seeds for 1, 2, 4, 8, 24 and 48 h at the beginning of the germination test. Finally, the effects of GA₃ at two different concentrations. 250 ppm and 500 ppm, was tested. The results show that the species under study produce small non-dormant seeds germinating only with long-term light stimulation or with GA₃. The requirement for light could be substituted by gibberellins but not by pre-chilling, as this species germinating only when on the soil surface was exposed to light and without competition. Thus, in accordance with the species distribution and life strategies, the germination niche highlights that for this species light is a fundamental factor promoting germination.
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