Habitats Directive in northern Italy: a series of proposals for habitat definition improvement

Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) is the cornerstone of nature conservation in Europe and is at the core of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. There is room, however, for its improvement, at least for northern Italy, where ambiguities in the definition of habitat types of Annex I of the Habitats Directive are not novel and interpretation difficulties have been highlighted. Sharpening the characterization of habitat types represents an opportunity for lowering classification uncertainties and improving conservation success. With the aim to refine the definitions of habitat types and associated typical species of the Habitats Directive, a group of vegetation scientists of the Italian Society of Vegetation Science based in northern Italy made the exercise of finding viable proposals for those habitat types having a problematic interpretation in the Alpine biogeographical region of Italy. Such proposals arise from group discussions among scientists, and professionals, thus offering a shared view. We prepared 9 habitat proposals important for this geographic area. They include new habitat types at the European level, new subtypes within pre-existing habitat types, including some adjustments of the recently proposed subtypes with respect to northern Italy, and recognition of priority criteria for a pre-existing habitat type. With a vision of tailored conservation, our proposals represent a starting point in view of a future update of Annex I. Furthermore, the list of typical species could be useful for preparing expert systems for automatic classification. Irrespective of legally binding solutions in place, we caution these proposals represent relevant baseline conservation indications that local and regional administrations of the Alpine Arch should consider

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

First overview on the 4th Annex I Habitats Report in Italy: methods, criticality, results and future prospects

Like all the other EU/28 countries, in 2019 Italy developed the 4th Italian Report ex-Art. 17 on the conservation status of the Habitats of Annex I to the 92/43/EEC Directive. Institutional referent of the process, on behalf of the Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea Protection (MATTM), was the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) with the scientific support of the Italian Botanical Society (SBI). A huge working group composed of thematic and territorial experts was formed with the task to collect, analyse, validate the data resulting from Annex I Habitat monitoring in Italy for the period 2013-2018, whose collection is in charge to the regional administrations. Data on 124 types of terrestrial and inland water Habitats present in Italy have been processed in order to assess their overall conservation status in the Biogeographic Regions of occurrence. The carried out activity led to the compilation of 278 assessment sheets. The work included a critical analysis of the data and a broad scientific confrontation aimed at finding methodologically robust solutions to fill the gaps. The work was structured so as to guarantee the traceability of the information and to allow the collection of "gray" literature and scientific articles, phytosociological surveys and unpublished material of the specialists, composing a substantial pool of data useful for starting a long-term process to support the next reporting cycles. Cartographic outcomes, associated databases and additional data used for the assessments will be available online on the ISPRA Portal as soon as the validation process by the European Commission will be completed. A freely accessible online archive of phytosociological surveys representative of the various Annex I Habitats in Italy is being set up within the national "VegItaly" database, managed by the Italian Society of Vegetation Science, by way of a dedicated archive named "HAB_IT". Such a long-term vision, oriented to the storage and enhancement of knowledge, represents an important innovative aspect and a significant progress towards the construction of an effective monitoring system for the conservation of Annex I Habitats in Italy

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits—the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants—determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits—almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

The leaf anatomical trade-offs associated with plant ecological strategy variation

Plant functioning depends on variation in resource economics traits (acquisition vs. conservation) and the size of plants and their parts (the 'global spectrum of plant form and function'). The anatomical basis of single traits (e.g., leaf mass per area; LMA) is generally understood, but little is known regarding the relationship between anatomical trade-offs and ecological strategies (representing integrated suites of traits). We hypothesised correlations between the relative extent of leaf tissue types and Grime's Competitor Stress-tolerator Ruderal (CSR) strategies, principally a trade-off between structural (mechanical/fibro-vascular) vs. photosynthetic (chlorenchyma and intercellular airspace; ICAS) tissues, for ecologically contrasting herbaceous angiosperms in northern Italy. Specifically, that in the lamina portion, the trade-off represents the economics spectrum (S-R selection), but in the midvein portion, it reflects the mechanical constraints inherent to supporting large leaves (i.e., varies with C-selection). We used microscopy and image analysis to determine the relative cross-sectional area of tissues from transverse leaf sections (lamina and midvein portions) of angiosperms of contrasting CSR strategies. Principal components analysis (PCA) determined that the main trade-off (PCA1) was between mechanical/fibro-vascular tissues vs. ICAS/epidermis/chlorenchyma, but that this was associated with the economics spectrum (R- to S-selection) in the lamina, and with size (C-selection) for the midvein. A secondary trade-off in both lamina and midvein portions involved ICAS (i.e., the internal gas diffusion pathway) vs. chlorenchyma/epidermis (light capture), associated with S- to R-selection, respectively. Our results confirm the expectation that ecological strategy variation has a basis in underlying trade-offs between tissues with contrasting metabolic/architectural (i.e., economics/size-related) roles

Towards a functional phytosociology: the functional ecology of woody diagnostic species and their vegetation classes in Northern Italy

Vegetation is often classified through phytosociology, which defines floristically and ecologically coherent units identified by diagnostic species. Since species- and community-environment relations are regulated by plant functional traits, it is likely that phytosociology has a strong functional underpinning, although the past and current phytosociology does not explicitly tackle this issue. Here we provide an analysis of functional traits of 221 woody species from Northern Italy, diagnostic of 21 European woody vegetation classes (including alien dominated ones). We assessed whether the functional space occupied by selected species corresponds to the physiognomy and ecology of the vegetation they represent, and whether this could help to evaluate major threats, such as invasion by alien species. For each species we collected from Authors\u2019 datasets leaf trait data (leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, carbon to nitrogen ratio, leaf nitrogen content) and whole plant (plant height, seed mass) traits, and calculated Competitor, Stress-tolerant, Ruderal (CSR) scores. We identified the multidimensional functional trait space of diagnostic species and clustered classes according to their scores in the functional space, to check whether their physiognomy was coherently represented and mirrored in the CSR space. Lastly, we tested for differences between native and neophyte species and their overlap with classes. Diagnostic species mirrored the global spectrum of plant form and function, and classes showed a functional pattern coherent with their physiognomy and ecology. Evergreen dominated classes showed a similar convergence toward conservative characteristics and the stress-tolerant strategy, as opposed to deciduous forest classes that showed a tendency toward the competitive strategy. None of the classes showed a marked ruderal strategy, thus abiotic stress and biotic competition are the main ecological drivers affecting woody vegetation. Neophyte woody species exhibited relatively more competitive strategies compared to natives, and their invasion could be facilitated in resource-limited or mildly disturbed environments, should climate warming or increased nutrient availability occur. We demonstrated that plant traits and CSR strategies of woody diagnostic species reliably indicate the structure and functions of the phytosociological classes they represent, opening the way to the development of a \u201cfunctional phytosociology\u201d

Climatic and evolutionary contexts are required to infer plant life history strategies from functional traits at a global scale

Life history strategies are fundamental to the ecology and evolution of organisms and are important for understanding extinction risk and responses to global change. Using global datasets and a multiple response modelling framework we show that trait-climate interactions are associated with life history strategies for a diverse range of plant species at the global scale. Our modelling framework informs our understanding of trade-offs and positive correlations between elements of life history after accounting for environmental context and evolutionary and trait-based constraints. Interactions between plant traits and climatic context were needed to explain variation in age at maturity, distribution of mortality across the lifespan and generation times of species. Mean age at maturity and the distribution of mortality across plants’ lifespan were under evolutionary constraints. These findings provide empirical support for the theoretical expectation that climatic context is key to understanding trait to life history relationships globally