Emiliano Agrillo

VegItaly: The Italian collaborative project for a national vegetation database

Abstract 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overview of the content of the database, currently consisting of 31,100 vegetation plot, including published and unpublished data.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.

Habitat conservation in Italy: the state of the art in the light of the first European Red List of Terrestrial and Freshwater Habitats

The importance of taking into account ecosystems, plant communities and habitats for the development of biodiversity conservation strategies is increasingly acknowledged. Recently, the first ever European Red List of Habitats was produced, which provided an evaluation of the extinction risk of EUNIS-based natural and semi-natural habitats in Europe. As assessment unit, it used the habitat intended as a plant community, thus representing a landmark for the role of vegetation science in nature conservation. In the present paper, the results of the European Red List of Habitats are analyzed at the national scale with specific reference to the terrestrial and freshwater habitat types occurring in Italy. More than three-quarters of the assessed European habitat types were recognized for the Italian territory. The distribution of the threat categories reflects approximately the situation at the EU28 level. About 35% of the assessed habitat types are referred to a threat category; no critically endangered habitat is present in Italy. The most frequently used criteria are those related to a reduction in quantity. Some critical issues arising from the analyses are discussed. In particular, the presence of knowledge gaps is pointed out, with remarkable reference to the poor availability of spatial and quantitative data, severely affecting the application of the criteria adopted for the assessment. Descriptions of habitat types from Italy are reported, some of which are representative, emblematic or even exclusive to the Italian territory. The outcomes of the analysis represent the starting point for the future development of a national-scale Red List of Habitats. Results also emphasized how habitat types with a too broad definition pose a limit to a proper evaluation of the regional biogeographic variability, often very high in Italy, with local floristic and phytocoenotic peculiarities which do not find room in the adopted European typology. This is the reason why the development of national subtypes stands as a necessary step for the development of a realistic and effective assessment at the national scale.

The use of large databases to characterize habitat types: the case of Quercus suber woodlands in Europe

The conservation of habitat types has been recognized to be of relevant importance for the conservation of biodiversity and is a major concern in the European Union. With the 92/43/EEC Habitats Directive, the European Commission targeted these habitat types, which conservation must be ensured by Member States. In this context, the Habitat type 9330 “Quercus suber forests” is intended to ensure the conservation of cork oak woodlands in Europe. To support the enhancement of nature conservation policies, in this study we provide a classification of cork oak woodlands in Europe using a large vegetation database. We identify four major groups with clear biogeographic differences and characterize them by lists of indicator species. We also provide distribution maps based on occurrence data and the modelled potential area of distribution as an additional tool for conservation. This study offers a contribution to the comparative description of the European Q. suber woodlands subtypes and to establish a protocol for habitat monitoring and assessment.

History and environment shape species pools and community diversity in European beech forests

A central hypothesis of ecology states that regional diversity influences local diversity through species-pool effects. Species pools are supposedly shaped by large-scale factors and then filtered into ecological communities, but understanding these processes requires the analysis of large datasets across several regions. Here, we use a framework of community assembly at a continental scale to test the relative influence of historical and environmental drivers, in combination with regional or local species pools, on community species richness and community completeness. Using 42,173 vegetation plots sampled across European beech forests, we found that large-scale factors largely accounted for species pool sizes. At the regional scale, main predictors reflected historical contingencies related to post-glacial dispersal routes, whereas at the local scale, the influence of environmental filters was predominant. Proximity to Quaternary refugia and high precipitation were the main factors supporting community species richness, especially among beech forest specialist plants. Models for community completeness indicate the influence of large-scale factors, further suggesting community saturation as a result of dispersal limitation or biotic interactions. Our results empirically demonstrate how historical factors complement environmental gradients to provide a better understanding of biodiversity patterns across multiple regions.A continent-wide analysis of community assembly in European beech forests shows different emphasis on historical or environmental effects on species pools across different scales.

Introduction: Vegetation science and the habitats directive: approaches and methodologies of a never-ending story

Rendiconti Lincei has dedicated a Special Issue to present a number of case studies highlighting the role played by the European Vegetation Survey Working Group established by Sandro Pignatti and his colleagues in support to the implementation of the Habitats Directive. Studies include theoretical analyses as well as researches conducted at different spatial and temporal scales focused on the assessment and monitoring of the conservation status of habitats and target plant species, identification of new habitats and subtypes, and their diagnostic species.

EVSItalia Database of Mires and Wetlands of Italy

A database of vegetation plots of mires & wetlands of Italy is presented (EVSItalia Database of Mires and Wetlands of Italy, GIVD ID EU-IT-016). The database currently stores 263 georeferenced releves from published certified phytosociological sources and from personal archives. But it is rapidly growing. Currently the data are mostly from the geographic range of the peninsular Italy (personal data), where relic mires are recorded. For the Alpine region, data are derived from literature sources. All the vegetation types recorded along the hydrological gradient are included: submerged and floating plants (macrophytes), emergent helophytes stands, swamps, etc. The aim is to provide data for a review of the classification of Italian wetlands, and namely mires, and its parameterisation by the means of the geostatistical analysis. This is done mostly to provide reasonably valid data for plans and programs on the conservation of mires and related ecosystems and to facilitate the exchange of information about mires. All the releves are uploaded to TURBOVEG. An ArcGis Database stores information about localization: Operational Geographic Units (OGU), corresponding to the quadrates of the Italian floristic grid, precise GPS or toponym information as well as descriptive records of locations extracted from geographical information systems are also stored.

EVSItalia Database of Broadleaved Deciduous Submediterranean Forests

A database of phytosociological releves of Broadleaved Deciduous Submediterranean Forests of peninsular Italy (the Thyrrenian sea basin, from Liguria to Calabria including Sicilia and Sardegna) is presented (EVSItalia Database of Broadleaved Deciduous Submediterranean Forests, GIVD ID EU-IT-009). The data-set aims to store information from published phytosociological sources, in order to support ongoing reviews based on larger data-sets for comparative classification of Italian vegetation types. The database stores 733 releves, mostly in oak forest areas dominated by Quercus pubescens and Q. cerris, from the subcoastal to the limit of beech forests in the mountain range of the Apennines and in the forests related to the syntaxa Quercion-pubescentis petreae in Sardegna. Releves were uploaded to TURBOVEG and store information about localization (ArcGis Database) in the square of the grid of Operational Geographic Units (OGU, i.e. quadrates of the Italian floristic grid), precise GPS or toponym localization and descriptive records of locations extracted from geographical information systems. Presence-absence or quantitative matrices are produced as well. The database aims to produce data for coenological classification and parametrisation over larger areas by geostatistical analysis. This will allow to explore patterns of similarity among the distribution of different associations (chorological groups of associations, provincialism), patterns of geographic changes in community distribution along topographical gradients and to test changes in the physical scenario of selected individual communities along geographical gradients. A different insight in to the patterns of synonymy and reassessment among syntaxa on the basis of a geographical treatise is expected.

RELIC MIRES IN PENINSULAR ITALY AND NATURA 2000

The study aims to detect patterns of distribution of mires along a geographical gradient. In order to do this, data from Natura 2000 inventories and distributional data for a selection of mire species have been compared. All data are referred to the 20 Regions (Administrative Districts) since distributional records of mire habitats and mire species are not yet available in literature sources. The inventory and mapping are in progress.