Diversity of European habitat types is correlated with geography more than climate and human pressure

Habitat richness, that is, the diversity of ecosystem types, is a complex, spatially explicit aspect of biodiversity, which is affected by bioclimatic, geographic, and anthropogenic variables. The distribution of habitat types is a key component for understanding broad-scale biodiversity and for developing conservation strategies. We used data on the distribution of European Union (EU) habitats to answer the following questions: (i) how do bioclimatic, geographic, and anthropogenic variables affect habitat richness? (ii) Which of those factors is the most important? (iii) How do interactions among these variables influence habitat richness and which combinations produce the strongest interactions? The distribution maps of 222 terrestrial habitat types as defined by the Natura 2000 network were used to calculate habitat richness for the 10 km × 10 km EU grid map. We then investigated how environmental variables affect habitat richness, using generalized linear models, generalized additive models, and boosted regression trees. The main factors associated with habitat richness were geographic variables, with negative relationships observed for both latitude and longitude, and a positive relationship for terrain ruggedness. Bioclimatic variables played a secondary role, with habitat richness increasing slightly with annual mean temperature and overall annual precipitation. We also found an interaction between anthropogenic variables, with the combination of increased landscape fragmentation and increased population density strongly decreasing habitat richness. This is the first attempt to disentangle spatial patterns of habitat richness at the continental scale, as a key tool for protecting biodiversity. The number of European habitats is related to geography more than climate and human pressure, reflecting a major component of biogeographical patterns similar to the drivers observed at the species level. The interaction between anthropogenic variables highlights the need for coordinated, continental-scale management plans for biodiversity conservation.Research contributing to this study was funded by the project “Development of a National Plan for Biodiversity Monitoring” (Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research – ISPRA). BIOME Group was partially supported by the H2020 SHOWCASE (Grant agreement No 862480) and by the H2020 COST Action CA17134 ‘Optical synergies for spatiotemporal sensing of scalable ecophysiological traits (SENECO)’

Forest ecosystem monitoring in Tuscany (Italy): past activities, present status and future perspectives

Since 1987 the Region of Tuscany has been actively monitoring crown status in its forests, in order to protect them from atmospheric pollution, biotic factors and environmental change. Over this period the Region has performed periodical inventories on crown condition in publicly-owned forests (Level I network) and established a network of permanent plots (MON.I.TO., Level II – III) to study long-term changes occurring in forest ecosystems. Some of these permanent plots were later included in the national programme CONECOFOR, managed by the Ministry for Policy in Agriculture and Forest. Currently a further development of MON.I.TO. is being implemented, called MONITO III – TOpModel, the aim of which is to broaden the information potential of the monitoring system to include carbon stocks and biodiversity evaluation. This paper provides an up-to-date report on the status of the various surveys and recommends a closer connection between MON.I.TO. and the other regional information systems, especially the Regional Forest Inventory, in order to produce information that may be useful in forest planning and in Sustainable Forest Management

Mapping species richness of plant families in European vegetation

Aims: Biodiversity is traditionally studied mostly at the species level, but biogeographical and macroecological studies at higher taxonomic levels can provide valuable insights into the evolutionary processes at large spatial scales. Our aim was to assess the representation of vascular plant families within different vegetation formations across Europe. Location: Europe. Methods: We used a data set of 816,005 vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA). For each plot, we calculated the relative species richness of each plant family as the number of species belonging to that family divided by the total number of species. We mapped the relative species richness, averaged across all plots in 50 km × 50 km grid cells, for each family and broad habitat groups: forests, grasslands, scrub and wetlands. We also calculated the absolute species richness and the Shannon diversity index for each family. Results: We produced 522 maps of mean relative species richness for a total of 152 vascular plant families occurring in forests, grasslands, scrub and wetlands. We found distinct spatial patterns for many combinations of families and habitat groups. The resulting series of 522 maps is freely available, both as images and GIS layers. Conclusions: The distinct spatial patterns revealed in the maps suggest that the relative species richness of plant families at the community level reflects the evolutionary history of individual families. We believe that the maps and associated data can inspire further biogeographical and macroecological studies and strengthen the ongoing integration of phylogenetic, functional and taxonomic diversity concepts.MV, IA, JPC, ZL, IK, AJ and MC were funded by the Czech Science Foundation, programme EXPRO (project no. 19-28491X); JDi by the Czech Science Foundation (18-02773S); IB and JAC by the Basque Government (IT936-16); AČ by the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS, P1-0236); AK by the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (project no. 2020.01/0140); JŠ by the Slovak Research and Development Agency (APVV 16-0431); KV by the National Science Fund (Contract DCOST 01/7/19.10.2018)

Development of a New Digital Signal Processing Platform for the Square Kilometre Array

A novel digital hardware platform has been designed for the Low Frequency Aperture Array (LFAA) component of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). This board, called Analog Digital Unit (ADU), is a 6U board containing sixteen dual-inputs Analog to Digital Converters (ADC) and two Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices, capable of digitizing and processing 32 RF input signals. We present the main features of the board and the signal processing firmware that has been developed for LFAA. Although the ADU has been conceived mainly for the low frequency band (50-350 MHz), its use has been proved effective also for higher frequencies (375-650 MHz). In this paper we describe also the application of ADU as the digital acquisition and processing system for PHAROS2, a cryogenically cooled 4-8 GHz Phased Array Feed (PAF) demonstrator. The final part is focused on the future developments of the board

GrassPlot - a database of multi-scale plant diversity in Palaearctic grasslands

GrassPlot is a collaborative vegetation-plot database organised by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) and listed in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD ID EU-00-003). GrassPlot collects plot records (releves) from grasslands and other open habitats of the Palaearctic biogeographic realm. It focuses on precisely delimited plots of eight standard grain sizes (0.0001; 0.001;... 1,000 m(2)) and on nested-plot series with at least four different grain sizes. The usage of GrassPlot is regulated through Bylaws that intend to balance the interests of data contributors and data users. The current version (v. 1.00) contains data for approximately 170,000 plots of different sizes and 2,800 nested-plot series. The key components are richness data and metadata. However, most included datasets also encompass compositional data. About 14,000 plots have near-complete records of terricolous bryophytes and lichens in addition to vascular plants. At present, GrassPlot contains data from 36 countries throughout the Palaearctic, spread across elevational gradients and major grassland types. GrassPlot with its multi-scale and multi-taxon focus complements the larger international vegetationplot databases, such as the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and the global database " sPlot". Its main aim is to facilitate studies on the scale-and taxon-dependency of biodiversity patterns and drivers along macroecological gradients. GrassPlot is a dynamic database and will expand through new data collection coordinated by the elected Governing Board. We invite researchers with suitable data to join GrassPlot. Researchers with project ideas addressable with GrassPlot data are welcome to submit proposals to the Governing Board

Plant–environment interactions through a functional traits perspective: a review of Italian studies

Italy is among the European countries with the greatest plant diversity due to both a great environmental heterogeneity and a long history of man–environment interactions. Trait-based approaches to ecological studies have developed greatly over recent decades worldwide, although several issues concerning the relationships between plant functional traits and the environment still lack sufficient empirical evaluation. To draw insights on the association between plant functional traits and direct and indirect human and natural pressures on the environmental drivers, this article summarizes the existing knowledge on this topic by reviewing the results of studies performed in Italy adopting a functional trait approach on vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens. Although we recorded trait measurements for 1418 taxa, our review highlighted some major gaps in plant traits knowledge: Mediterranean ecosystems are poorly represented; traits related to belowground organs are still overlooked; traits measurements for bryophytes and lichens are lacking. Finally, intraspecific variation has been little studied at community level so far. We conclude by highlighting the need for approaches evaluating trait–environment relationship at large spatial and temporal scales and the need of a more effective contribution to online databases to tie more firmly Italian researchers to international scientific networks on plant traits

<scp>ReSurveyEurope</scp>: A database of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe

AbstractAimsWe introduce ReSurveyEurope — a new data source of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe, compiled by a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. We describe the scope of this initiative, provide an overview of currently available data, governance, data contribution rules, and accessibility. In addition, we outline further steps, including potential research questions.ResultsReSurveyEurope includes resurveyed vegetation plots from all habitats. Version 1.0 of ReSurveyEurope contains 283,135 observations (i.e., individual surveys of each plot) from 79,190 plots sampled in 449 independent resurvey projects. Of these, 62,139 (78%) are permanent plots, that is, marked in situ, or located with GPS, which allow for high spatial accuracy in resurvey. The remaining 17,051 (22%) plots are from studies in which plots from the initial survey could not be exactly relocated. Four data sets, which together account for 28,470 (36%) plots, provide only presence/absence information on plant species, while the remaining 50,720 (64%) plots contain abundance information (e.g., percentage cover or cover–abundance classes such as variants of the Braun‐Blanquet scale). The oldest plots were sampled in 1911 in the Swiss Alps, while most plots were sampled between 1950 and 2020.ConclusionsReSurveyEurope is a new resource to address a wide range of research questions on fine‐scale changes in European vegetation. The initiative is devoted to an inclusive and transparent governance and data usage approach, based on slightly adapted rules of the well‐established European Vegetation Archive (EVA). ReSurveyEurope data are ready for use, and proposals for analyses of the data set can be submitted at any time to the coordinators. Still, further data contributions are highly welcome.</jats:sec

Testing the spectral variation hypothesis by using satellite multispectral images

3In the present paper, a test of the spectral variation hypothesis (SVH) was performed using multispectral high resolution satellite data. The SVH was tested by comparing the relationship between the spectral heterogeneity and species richness in plots of different size (100-10000 m2) in a complex wetland ecosystem, the "Montepulciano Lake", Central Italy. The nature reserve of the Montepulciano Lake is centered on a 100 ha shallow lake surrounded on three sides by a Phragmites australis and Carex sp. pl. marsh of about 280 ha. The monitoring program for the reserve vegetation started in 2002 and is based on the analysis of 1, 100 m2 and 1 ha (10000 m2) plots, organized in such a manner that four of the smaller size plots are nested, following a random design, within a larger one. Data on species composition and community structure were collected in the plots and stored in a GIS-linked archive. A multispectral Quickbird satellite image (3 m spatial resolution) acquired of the wetland and lake ecosystem during the same period was radiometrically and geometrically corrected. We performed an analysis to examine the use of spectral heterogeneity using the four visible and infrared wavebands of the satellite image to predict species richness at the different spatial scales. The spectral heterogeneity was found to explain about 20% of the variance of species richness at the 100 m2 scale and about 50% at the 1 ha scale. It was concluded that multispectral high resolution satellite data can contribute to the biodiversity assessment of complex wetland ecosystemsreservedmixedROCCHINI D.; CHIARUCCI A.; LOISELLE S.A.Rocchini, Duccio; Chiarucci, Alessandro; Loiselle, STEVEN ARTHU

Assessing the diversity pattern of cryophilous plant species in high elevation habitats

4This study aimed to better document the diversity and distribution patterns of vascular cryophilous species across major habitat types in a high-elevation Mediterranean system in central Italy. The research addressed the following questions: (a) whether different habitats support similar levels of biodiversity in terms of total vascular plants richness and cryophilous species richness, and (b) how each habitat contributes to the total cryophilous species diversity. A random stratified sampling approach based on a habitat map was applied to construct rarefaction curves for overall cryophilous species richness and habitat type-specific cryophilous richness. Rarefaction curves were also constructed for all-species and exclusive species. To determine whether the targeted species represented a constant proportion of all species, the ratio between the rarefaction curves of the cryophilous species and all species was also calculated. The results highlight the importance of the different habitat types in overall and cryophilous species conservation because these different habitat types had progressively higher richness values. At the regional scale, steep slopes had the highest species diversity, the greatest exclusive species richness and a steep rarefaction curve. The diversity pattern of cryophilous taxa was not related to the general pattern of total species richness, with these species being more common in three habitat types with extreme environmental conditions: ridges, cliffs, and screes. For the establishment of successful biodiversity conservation programs, it is imperative to include species-poor habitats containing a high proportion of cryophilous species, which are considered to be threatened by climate warming.reservedmixedSTANISCI A; CARRANZA L; PELINO G; A. CHIARUCCIStanisci, A; Carranza, L; Pelino, G; Chiarucci, Alessandr