Are the ancient forests of the Eastern Po plain large enough for a long term conservation of herbaceous nemoral species?

We analysed the effects of patch configuration and site history on vascular plants in ancient forests of the Eastern Po Plain, documented back to 1740. Despite their reduced size, all the forests are part of Natura 2000 Network and significantly contribute to the maintenance of a threatened habitat and support biological diversity of the Continental biogeographic region. The presence of some functional ecological plant species groups was correlated with patch configuration and age. Habitat quality, in terms of suitability for forest species, was found to be important in explaining the presence of species of high conservation value, but patch age (as an indicator for habitat quality) played a major role too. For core forest species, patch area is a redundant variable in explaining species richness relative to habitat quality and patch age and the extinction of specialists seems to occur mainly in a deterministic way. Even small forest fragments can be very important for maintaining plant species diversity, at least if they are of high habitat quality and if the forest management is appropriate. However, to achieve a long term conservation, management plans should also aim at an improvement of the anthropogenic matrix surrounding forest remnants

Modelling climate change impacts on nutrients and primary production in coastal waters

There is high confidence that the anthropogenic increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) is causing\ud modifications in the Earth's climate. Coastal waterbodies such as estuaries, bays and lagoons are among those\ud most affected by the ongoing changes in climate. Being located at the land-sea interface, such waterbodies are\ud subjected to the combined changes in the physical-chemical processes of atmosphere, upstreamland and coastal\ud waters. Particularly, climate change is expected to alter phytoplankton communities by changing their environmental\ud drivers (especially climate-related), thus exacerbating the symptoms of eutrophication events, such as\ud hypoxia, harmful algal blooms (HAB) and loss of habitat. A better understanding of the links between climaterelated\ud drivers and phytoplankton is therefore necessary for projecting climate change impacts on aquatic\ud ecosystems.\ud Herewe present the case study of the Zero river basin in Italy, one of the main contributors of freshwater and nutrient\ud to the salt-marsh Palude di Cona, a coastalwaterbody belonging to the lagoon of Venice. To project the impacts\ud of climate change on freshwater inputs, nutrient loadings and their effects on the phytoplankton\ud community of the receiving waterbody, we formulated and applied an integrated modelling approach made\ud of: climate simulations derived by coupling a General Circulation Model (GCM) and a Regional Climate Model\ud (RCM) under alternative emission scenarios, the hydrological model Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT)\ud and the ecological model AQUATOX. Climate projections point out an increase of precipitations in the winter period\ud and a decrease in the summermonths,while temperature shows a significant increase over thewhole year.\ud Water discharge and nutrient loads simulated by SWAT show a tendency to increase (decrease) in the winter (summer) period. AQUATOX projects changes in the concentration of nutrients in the salt-marsh Palude di Cona, and variations in the biomass and species of the phytoplankton community