Scuola di Scienze Ambientali

Question: We study the effect of traditional coppicing and its abandonment on community structure and plant diversity at various scales. The aim is to compare active and abandoned beech coppices in terms of: (i) structural features (ii) total, understory and overstory plant diversity across a range of spatial scales (iii) species richness of beech forest specialist species. Location: Monti Sibillini, Central Apennines, Italy. Methods: We applied a multiscale approach working in parallel at fine scale (individual management units, 0.5-1 ha), and at coarser scale (the whole forest patch). Two forests patches were selected according to management regimes (active, 1-40 years, and abandoned coppicing, >40 years) in each of the two study areas (Bolognola and Ussita). Individual management units were sampled with 400mq plots; each forest patch was represented by 20 plots arranged in grids. Results: We found significant differences in structural features between coppiced and abandoned forests. At plot scale, only the number of beech forest specialist species was significantly higher in abandoned plots. At the forest patch scale, the Bolognola actively coppiced forests hosts many more species than the abandoned ones, but an opposite result was found at Ussita. The abandoned forests show a constant higher beech forest specialist species richness at Ussita, while in Bolognola we found just the opposite. The managed forests host more overstory species than abandoned ones in both areas. Surprisingly the total beech forest specialist species richness was higher in the coppiced plots with respect to the abandoned ones. The species assemblages were more similar between patches having different management regimes within the same area, than between patches having the same management regime across different areas. Conclusions: This material provides a novel contribution to the study of species diversity patterns in this forest system, suggesting the importance of a multiple scale approach in forest diversity studies. The beech forest specialist species can largely persist in a heterogeneous coppice landscape, where abandoned stands are mixed with stands under a regular coppicing. The results can link the existing knowledge of beech coppice diversity between landscape-and plot-scale, helping to address new conservation planning.

The study of plant trait-environment links is rarely focused on traits that inform on space occupancy and resprouting (both affecting plant persistence), especially in forest understories. Traits that can effectively capture such key functions are associated with clonality and bud banks. We hypothesized that: 1) climate is the main driver of clonal and bud bank traits, 2) traits related to space occupancy (e.g., greater lateral spread) are more important in more mesic, richer soils forests, and 3) traits related to resprouting ability (e.g., larger bud bank) are more important in more intensively and recently managed forests. We addressed these hypotheses by analysing a unique dataset that is statistically representative of Italian forests heterogeneity and includes three biogeographic regions (Alpine, Continental, Mediterranean). We recorded data for sixteen climatic, soil and management variables. We calculated community weighted mean (CWM) values of seven clonal and bud bank traits for the forest understory vegetation. We used i) redundancy analysis to assess traitenvironment relations, and ii) variance partitioning analyses to identifying the relative role of different groups of abiotic variables on CWM variation of all traits combined together, as well as clonal and bud bank traits taken separately. Climate alone had a pervasive effect in determining patterns of clonal and bud bank traits in Italian forest understories, mainly related to the effects of temperature extremes and seasonality. Unexpectedly, soil and management factors alone showed marginal effects on clonal and bud bank traits. However, soil features influenced trait patterns when joined with climate. Our results confirmed that, at the biogeographic scale, climate played a lionshare role in determining persistence-related traits of forest-floor plants. At the local-scale, other interplaying factors (e.g., management, soil variables) may come into play in shaping patterns of the studied plant traits. This study stressed the importance of examining functional trait patterns along complex environmental gradients.

Species pool conservation is critical for the stability of ecosystem processes. However, climate and land use changes will likely affect biodiversity, and managers of protected areas are under increasing pressure to monitor native species diversity changes by approaches that are scientifically sound and comparable over time. Here we describe a plant diversity monitoring system in use since 2002 in the “Montagna di Torricchio” Nature Reserve (LTER_EU_IT_033), a Central Apennines representative area of 317 ha, most of which is under strict protection. The aim of this paper was to assess changes in plant species richness over time and to deduce the patterns of species assemblage. The monitoring system was based on a probabilistic sampling design representative of the different physiognomic vegetation types occurring in the Reserve. A total of 34 plots (10×10m) were sampled in 2002, 2003 and 2015, and their species presence/absence and relative coverage were estimated. Repeated measure ...

Biogeographical units are widely adopted in ecological research and nature conservation management, even though biogeographical regionalisation is still under scientific debate. The European Environment Agency provided an official map of the European Biogeographical Regions (EBRs), which contains the official boundaries used in the Habitats and Birds Directives. However, these boundaries bisect cells in the official EU 10 km × 10 km grid used for many purposes, including reporting species and habitat data, meaning that 6881 cells overlap two or more regions. Therefore, superimposing the EBRs vector map over the grid creates ambiguities in associating some cells with European Biogeographical Regions. To provide an operational tool to unambiguously define the boundaries of the eleven European Biogeographical Regions, we provide a specifically developed raster map of Grid-Based European Biogeographical Regions (GB-EBRs). In this new map, the borders of the EBRs are reshaped to coherent...

This study aims to increase floristic knowledge of Marche by means of a survey in the Montagna di Torricchio State Nature Reserve (central Italy). The Reserve, located in the central Apennines, covers about 3.2 km2 at altitudes ranging from 820 to 1,491 m a.s.l. It has been owned and managed as a strict reserve by the University of Camerino since 1970: all the anthropic activities ceased about 50 years ago, except for a minimal area where mowing and cattle grazing are still allowed. The floristic list consists of 789 specific and subspecific taxa belonging to 81 families and 352 genera. Two species are new for Italy (Taraxacum calocarpum and T. pulchrifolium) and 14 for Marche regional flora. Compared to previous floristic studies, we found 127 more taxa but we showed a certain stability in the life-form spectrum, suggesting limited effects of dynamic processes related to climate and land-use changes. The negligible number of alien species (11) is probably related to the limitations...

This paper explores which traits are correlated with fine-scale (0.25 m2) species persistence patterns in the herb layer of old-growth forests. Four old-growth beech forests representing different climatic contexts (presence or absence of summer drought period) were selected along a north–south gradient in Italy. Eight surveys were conducted in each of the sites during the period spanning 1999–2011. We found that fine-scale species persistence was correlated with different sets of plant functional traits, depending on local ecological context. Seed mass was found to be as important for the fine-scale species persistence in the northern sites, while clonal and bud-bank traits were markedly correlated with the southern sites characterised by summer drought. Leaf traits appeared to correlate with species persistence in the drier and wetter sites. However, we found that different attributes, i.e. helomorphic vs scleromorphic leaves, were correlated to species persistence in the northern...

Extreme weather events are expected to increase in frequency and magnitude due to climate change especially on Mediterranean chains, but their effect on ecosystem services and vegetation processes are widely unknown. Prediction of future impacts has become critical to conservation planning and management, particularly in protected areas. Our research has been carried out in the Torricchio Nature Reserve (Central Apennines, Italy), 317 ha under strict protection since 1970, owned and managed by the University of Camerino. Two contrasting grassland ecosystems under different environmental conditions (North and South facing slopes) were selected to simulate extreme events. The magnitude of a given recurrence interval (1000 year) were estimated by the application of extreme value distributions on climate data series covering 50 years. In both slopes, the weather manipulations consisted of extreme drought (D), additional rainfall (R) and ambient conditions for control (C). The experiment...

La relazione intende:
a) porre le basi del problema del finanziamento dei beni ambientali pubblici come i parchi,
b) evidenziare la generale crisi della finanza pubblica per l'ambiente e sottolineando la riduzione di fondi pubblici dedicati alla conservazione della biodiversità nella maggior parte dei Paesi,
c) analizzare la questione della domanda privata e "istituzionale" di beni pubblici ambientali (parchi) in un contesto globale in cui la CBD chiede di aumentare le aree soggette a protezione e le risorse economiche (pubbliche) per la loro gestione sono in calo o stabili (con alcune eccezioni legate agli aiuti internazionali) e la domanda privata di "ambiente" in paesi a basso PIL non é particolarmente significativa,
d) presentare alcuni casi di parchi in Italia (Alpi), Macedonia (Shar Planina) e Carpazi (Romania) che devono o hanno affrontato problemi di finanziamento della conservazione,
e) indicare alcune fonti di finanziamento per la conservazione disponibili in diverse aree con cenni alla quantificazione economica dei servizi ecosistemici quale una delle fonti di finanziamento a disposizione per la conservazione della biodiversità nelle aree protette.
f) fornire alcuni spunti utili per la comunità dei giuristi ambientali circa ambiti di analisi per il futuro

The report (in Italian) recalls the meaning of resilience as a mixed good on which individual responsibilities and interests merge with public policies. Some examples of public and private management of adaptation to climate change are presented  as well as some general features of the topic that should be taken into consideraiton when policy instruments and actions are envisaged in the field.