The challenge of abandonment for the sustainable management of Palaearctic natural and semi-natural grasslands

Disturbance by biomass removal is a crucial mechanism maintaining the diversity of Palaearctic grasslands, which are unique biodiversity hotspots. The century-long traditional land use of mowing, grazing and burning, has been fundamentally changed in many parts of the Palaearctic. Due to socio-economic changes, large areas of former pastures and meadows have been abandoned, leading to a succession towards secondary scrublands or forest and the encroachment of competitor grass species, all leading to a decrease in biodiversity. Here we report the causes and consequences of the cessation of traditional grassland management regimes, provide strategies for reducing the impact of abandonment and consider these from the perspective of sustainability. We consider the possibilities for initiating sustainable management regimes in the contemporary socio-economic environment, and discuss the prospects and limitation of alternative management regimes in the conservation of grassland biodiversity. These themes are also the core topics of this Special Feature, edited by the EDGG. We hope that this Special Feature will encourage steps towards more sustainable strategies for the conservation of Palaearctic grasslands and the integration of the sustainability perspective into their conservation. © by Orsolya Valkó 2018.Peer reviewe

Nuove segnalazioni floristiche italiane 12. Flora vascolare (101–112)

Nuove segnalazioni floristiche italian

Cambiamenti del paesaggio nel sito Natura 2000 “Murgia Alta" e frammentazione delle praterie aride

This research aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of the process of Natura 2000 implementation at the national and regional levels in avoiding the loss and fragmentation of dry grasslands in the SCI/SPA IT9120007 “Murgia Alta” (Apulia region, Italy). Based on a comparison between Corine Land Cover maps for years 1990, 1999, 2006, historic habitat fragmentation was analysed for the whole site extent by means of identification and quantification of fragmentation geometries and size variation intervals of the remaining focal habitat patches. Based on a 2006-2007 high-resolution land-use map, the current level of habitat fragmentation was assessed in 8 transects by a quantitative analysis of the landscape pattern, and by integrating indexes representing both the global and the local approach to landscape pattern analysis. The results indicate that heavy habitat loss and fragmentation occurred during the 1990-1999 period, mostly due to conversion to arable land. This period approximately corresponds to a delay in transposing the UE “Habitats” Directive at the national and regional levels. Negligible changes can be detected, at this scale, for the 1999-2006 period, after Natura 2000 site selection and boundary definition had been approved. Natura 2000 boundary definition in the study area can be considered as appropriate, as a very small surface of the focal habitat is found outside of Natura 2000. An analysis at a finer scale and the joint use of different indices highlight the spatial variability of the current fragmentation and provides indications of the pressure nearby the focal habitat. Besides quantifying the recent change and the current status of dry grasslands in the study area, this analysis shows that the integration of complementary information derived from different approaches and the availability of maps at different spatial scales are necessary to monitoring habitat fragmentation, both within and outside Natura 2000, an essential element for assessing the effectiveness of conservation policies

Hidden in plain sight: unveiling the distributions of green‐winged grasshoppers ( Aiolopus spp.) with citizen‐science data

International audienceUnderstanding the geographical distribution of phenotypically highly similar species (i.e. cryptic species) represents a challenge to biogeographers, due to the obvious difficulties in identifying such taxa without specific expertise. Besides, citizen science is increasingly emerging as a key approach for supporting biodiversity data collection, but remains hard to apply in the case of cryptic species. Here we aim to test the combination of community records and photography-based quantitative methods, for assessing the distribution of cryptic taxa, by using two grasshopper species of the genus Aiolopus as models. To achieve these objectives, we first assess the reliability of photography-based diagnostic criteria to differentiate between A. thalassinus and A. puissanti without ambiguity from correctly identified records, and then apply such criteria to geographical regions of potential range overlap between the two species, in order to clarify their respective distributions. By applying a multivariate classification approach based on ratio measurements taken from photographs, we provide a quantitative tool to successfully identify the two species, and disclose that A. puissanti widely occurs outside of its currently known range, and outline potential research avenues on the biogeography of these poorly studied species. Our results also point at how some types of cryptic species may be effectively identified by adopting a quantitative photography-based approach, with applicability for clarifying species' distributions at wide scales by exploiting publicly available citizen-science records. Our study thus, besides shedding light onto the biogeography and distributions of Aiolopus grasshoppers across the Mediterranean, represents an effective and repeatable framework to disentangle the distributions of poorly studied cryptic species

Very high resolution Earth observation features for monitoring plant and animal community structure across multiple spatial scales in protected areas

Monitoring the status and future trends in biodiversity can be prohibitively expensive using groundbased surveys. Consequently, significant effort is being invested in the use of satellite remote sensing to represent aspects of the proximate mechanisms (e.g., resource availability) that can be related to biodiversity surrogates (BS) such as species community descriptors. We explored the potential of very high resolution (VHR) satellite Earth observation (EO) features as proxies for habitat structural attributes that influence spatial variation in habitat quality and biodiversity change. In a semi-natural grassland mosaic of conservation concern in southern Italy, we employed a hierarchical nested sampling strategy to collect field and VHR-EO data across three spatial extent levels (landscape, patch and plot). Species incidence and abundance data were collected at the plot level for plant, insect and bird functional groups. Spectral and textural VHR-EO image features were derived from a Worldview-2 image. Three window sizes (grains) were tested for analysis and computation of textural features, guided by the perception limits of different organisms. The modelled relationships between VHR-EO features and BS responses differed across scales, suggesting that landscape, patch and plot levels are respectively most appropriate when dealing with birds, plants and insects. This research demonstrates the potential of VHR-EO for biodiversity mapping and habitat modelling, and highlights the importance of identifying the appropriate scale of analysis for specific taxonomic groups of interest. Further, textural features are important in the modelling of functional group-specific indices which represent BS in high conservation value habitat types, and provide a more direct link to species interaction networks and ecosystem functioning, than provided by traditional taxonomic diversity indices

Prioritizing conservation of terrestrial orchids: A gap analysis for Italy

Protected areas (PAs) are a strategic tool for biodiversity conservation, and conservation planning approaches are used to optimize PAs capacity to preserve specific target groups. Orchidaceae is one of the most threatened plant families, as most species are vulnerable to habitat changes because of their strong ecological specialization. Italy plays a key role in biogeography as a result of its geographical position and hosts one of the most diverse orchid floras in the Mediterranean Basin. The aim of this work is to depict the degree of protection granted to orchids by the current network of PAs across the entire Italian country, testing whether distributional and ecological features affect species' conservation representativeness, and identifying a priority list of species to be further protected. We compiled a dataset comprising 71,693 occurrence records, the spatial conservation representativeness was calculated as the percent of occurrences falling within the borders of PAs. Generalized Linear Models were run to assess differences in the spatial conservation representativeness among species according to the preferred habitat, endemicity, chorology, and protection by the Habitats Directive. We produced a list of species to be used for prioritizing conservation planning. Our findings show that emphasis is needed on adopting orchid species linked to primary or well mature habitats to select additional PAs with high conservation significance. Our findings reiterate the urgency of targeted conservation actions that can protect orchids and prevent their decline

Pre-evaluation and rank sampling

Different kinds of approach to landscape configuration analysis were applied to a benchmark landuse/land cover map. A pre-evaluation landscape pattern analysis (LPA), a morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) a landscape mosaic analysis and a landscape variation analysis, were carried out. These analyses provide a site and scale specific composite set of indices which can be used as a change biodiversity indicator set with reference to the CBDSEBI focal areas: status and trends of the components of biological diversity, Ecosystem integrity, and ecosystem goods and services. Keywords Landscape pattern analysis, morphological spatial pattern analysis, landscape mosaic analysis, landscape variation analysis habitat fragmentation, biodiversity, indicator