Rocco Labadessa

Understanding 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.

<p class="paragraph"><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB">Land degradation processes have undergone towards a significant increase in recent decades which is likely to further increase if no actions are taken. The need of adopting practices to contain, mitigate and restore degraded land have been stressed by the new Soil Strategy. In order to guide actions, through a common and effective framework, a cost and time efficient approach is needed. Experiences from six pilot sites in southern European countries, selected within the NL4DL LIFE project, were examined and monitored with both available field data and satellite-acquired data, in order to be replicated, improved and transferred to similar degraded sites. The heterogeneity and complexity of degradation processes resulted from the pilot sites highlighted issues and necessities of harmonization and standardization of ecological/physical indicators, especially those derived from satellite observations, when used as proxies of land degradation. </span></span><span class="eop"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></span></p> <p class="paragraph"><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB">The aim of the tool is to provide a reference procedure to be applied to monitor restoration activities based on nature-based solutions on degraded lands, once the degradation processes has been identified. Variables considered in the tool include processes of degradation, physical indicators derived from remotely sensed approaches and most common practices of nature-based solutions. Connections between these variables, which form the basis of the relational map of the tool, have been initially collected through the internal knowledge of the project and will be further deepened trough expert-based questionnaires to experts of different disciplines in the field of soil and environmental sciences.</span></span><span class="eop"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></span></p> <p><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB">The decision-making tool provide a workflow to guide the end users in the field of environmental management and planning, through the identification of land degradation processes, the selection of monitoring indicators viable and the most suitable nature based solution for that particular degraded land. The tool will be used as an input base for an action protocol at local and regional scale for environmental management and planning</span></span></p>

The need of adopting practices to restore degraded land has been stressed by the new Soil Strategy, with regard to dry ecosystems showing greater risk of desertification. To assess the effectiveness, feasibility and replicability of restoration techniques applied to Mediterranean dry ecosystems, a set of different restoration techniques has been tested in Alta Murgia National Park (Southern Italy), one of the NewLife4Drylands project (NL4D; https://www.newlife4drylands.eu) pilot sites. This area is particularly subjected to land degradation processes as a result of recent and widespread activities of rock shattering for the conversion of calcareous pastures to croplands, which had caused an extensive loss of semi-natural vegetation and ecosystem functions. Experimental efforts were aimed at testing sustainable techniques for the restoration of protected dry grassland types that naturally occur in the study area. Within an overall surface of 9000 m2, 42 experimental plots of 20x10m a...

Protected areas, or national parks, are established to preserve natural ecosystems; their effectiveness on the territory needs to be evaluated. We propose considering a time series of the SDG 15.1.2 indicator, “Proportion of important sites for terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity that are covered by protected areas, by ecosystem type”, to quantify the presence over time of grassland ecosystem in Murgia Alta (southern Italy), within the Natura 2000 and national park boundaries. Time series of remote sensing imagery, freely available, were considered for extracting, by Support Vector Machine classifiers, a time series of grassland cover mappings from 1990 to 2021. This latter was, then, used for computing a time series of the SDG 15.1.2 indicator. A high reduction (about 15,000 ha) of grassland presence from 1990 to 2004, the foundation years of the national park, followed by the increasing stability up to nowadays, was evaluated. Furthermore, grassland presence was evaluated in a...

Wild boar is among the most abundant ungulates in Europe and its spread is locally creating concerns as a major threat to biodiversity conservation. However, through their rooting activity, wild boars could play an effective role in the creation of specific microhabitat resources for plants and animals. Here, we tested the hypothesis that wild boar affects the habitat suitability to threatened butterflies, by evaluating the influence of rooting on multiple key aspects of the biology and ecology of the Mediterranean endemic Zerynthia cassandra. Namely, we used Z. cassandra as a model to test the effects of wild boar rooting on adult foraging opportunities, host plant occurrence, and oviposition site selection. We found that herbaceous communities disturbed by wild boar rooting have a higher proportion of plants representing nectar resources for early-flying butterflies. We also discovered that wild boar rooting positively influences the occurrence and abundance of the larval host pla...

<p>In 2015, during the 12<sup>th</sup> Conference of the Parties (COP) a new overall vision objective of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 called “Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)” was incorporated. NewLife4Drylands (NL4DL; https://www.newlife4drylands.eu/), the LIFE Preparatory project, focuses on the use of remote sensing for the identification of a framework for the monitoring of land degradation and results of nature-based restoration interventions for achieving LDN. With this aim, Indicators and/or their proxies have been extracted from satellite data as essential variables for land degradation status assessment. Six Mediterranean Natura 2000 study sites located in Italy, Greece and Spain were considered as case studies and pressures and threats affecting each of them were analysed as land cover mappings, burn severity mappings, time series of climatic and phenology spectral indices, precipitation indices, soil organic carbon mappings.  Freely available satellite data from Landsat and Sentinel-2 programs were considered: in the case of sites less than 50 hectares in size, commercial satellite data at very high spatial resolution were used for evaluation. The indices analyzed will be integrated for the computation of SDG 15.3.1 indicator “<em>proportion of land that is degraded over the total land area</em>” according to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and UNCCD guidelines. SDG 15.3.1 standard formula considers sub-indicators to be integrated: trends in land cover, primary productivity and soil organic carbon. The novelty in the project outcomes is two-fold: 1) the estimation of drivers/disturbance (drought, fire, etc.) of LDN together with sub-indicators will allow to give practical indication to land manager; 2) sub-indicators have been computed at the local scale. For each study site, short-term and long-term analyses will be approached. Results will be part of a protocol for the assessment of land degradation and monitoring restoration interventions of degraded land.</p>

Climate change is reshaping species’ distributions around the globe, yet different factors may actually drive species’ responses at different spatial scales e.g., from global to local. Environmental conditions and biotic interactions may thus change their relative importance in influencing species’ occurrence according to the considered spatial extent, making a multi-scale approach key to understand species’ distributions and future range dynamics. In this study, we tested the relative roles of climate and interspecific competition in shaping the distributions of two cryptic species of Orthopterans at global and regional scales. Namely, we assessed the spatial responses to climate change in Oecanthus tree crickets (O. pellucens and O. dulcisonans) that show ecological and morphological resemblance, and partial range overlap. We found significant and species-specific associations with bioclimatic variables related to both temperature and precipitation. We also observed diverging predicted responses between the two species, showing massive range loss for O. pellucens and slight expansion for O. dulcisonans under future scenarios. This result was also supported by environmental niche analysis, indicating O. pellucens as significantly more specialized taxon in terms of climatic niche. At a regional scale, we evidenced how interspecific competition may play a strong and asymmetrical role in determining species’ presence, with only O. pellucens being significantly affected by O. dulcisonans, and not vice-versa. Our results shed light on the potential responses of Orthopterans to climate change, and on the spatial-specific respective roles of climate and competition in shaping species’ distributions. Moreover, we highlight how, within cryptic species complexes, competition dynamics and niche specialization may represent key elements in determining winners and losers in the race against climate change.

International audienceMany studies suggest the importance of boundary features on plant community dynamics. Our aim was to investigate the influence of boundary features on edge plant assemblages in semi-natural dry grasslands. For this purpose we selected 16 grassland edges in the central portion of the Natura 2000 site Murgia Alta, in southeastern Italy. These sites were selected according to a combination of boundary features, i.e. the adjoining land use type (road or cereal crop), slope (grassland tilted towards matrix or flat) and stonewall (occurring or not). Within each site, cover value of vascular plant species was sampled along 0.5x2.5m linear plot. A correspondence analysis has been used for the simultaneous ordination of species presence/absence data and the 16 edge plots. Grassland edges with stonewall were characterized either by forest ecotone species in case of sloped edges, or by species typical of sub-mesic calcareous grasslands in case of flat edges. Therefore, st...

Availability and dispersal of target plant propagules and applied management techniques can considerably affect the success of grassland restoration. In our study we explored the effect of sheep grazing on plant species composition of an early staged recovering grassland, which developed on newly created soil surfaces. We recorded the presence and cover of vascular plant species in 17 grazed and 6 ungrazed plots during three consecutive years after the restoration of a landfill in southern Italy. A DCA ordination based on species percentage cover was calculated to assess the species composition of the plots in the three years. Plant assemblages were compared to adjacent reference grassland in terms of species composition and cover of functional groups based on their role (i.e. target species or weeds) and their seed dispersal potential (i.e. high or low epizoochorous ranking index). For each parameter, Relative Response Indices (RRIs) were calculated to assess the relationship betwe...

Orthopterans are well known to represent the majority of insect biomass in many grassland ecosystems. However, the verification of a relationship between the traditional descriptors of orthopteran assemblage structure and plant community patterns is not straightforward. We explore the usefulness of the concept of life forms to provide insights on such ecosystem level relationship. For this purpose, thirty sample sites in semi-natural calcareous grasslands were classified according to the relative proportion of dominant herbaceous plant life forms. Orthopteran species were grouped in four categories, based on the Bei-Bienko’s life form categorization. The association among plant communities, orthopteran assemblages and environmental factors was tested by means of canonical correspondence analysis. Orthoptera groups were found to be associated with distinct plant communities, also indicating the effect of vegetation change on orthopteran assemblages. In particular, geobionta species w...

New populations of Eyprepocnemis plorans plorans (Charpentier, 1825) are first reported for southeastern Italy. The species was found in the period 2013-2017 in different lowland habitats of Apulia and Basilicata. These data may document a most recent colonization of southeastern Italy, which is potentially due to a wide range shift or expansion of species distribution from adjacent regions or countries.

Palaearctic grasslands encompass a diverse variety of habitats, many of high nature value and vulnerability. The main challenges are climate-change, land-use change, agricultural intensification and abandonment. Many measures are in place to address these challenges, through restoration and appropriate management, though more work is necessary. We present eight studies from China/Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. The papers cover a wide range of grassland and steppe habitats and cover vegetation ecology, syntaxonomy and zoology. We also conducted a systematic search on steppe and grassland diversity. The greatest number of studies was from China, followed by Germany and England. We conclude that the amount of research being carried out on Eurasian grasslands is inadequate considering their high levels of biodiversity and vulnerability. We hope to encourage readers to address current major challenges, such as how to manage grasslands for the benefit of diverse taxa, to...

Butterflies from southernmost European regions encompass a large fraction of faunistic and genetic diversity but are also at the forefront of extinction risk for climate change. Nevertheless, monitoring schemes aimed at detecting their population trends were only recently established. In this study, we gathered all occurrence records of the 81 species of butterflies recorded for the Alta Murgia National Park (Italy, Apulia), a prime conservation area for butterflies. By using literature, citizen science, and unpublished sample data, we traced potential extinctions since 1966. We also provided a dedicated index to evaluate the potential extinction at the whole community level. We found that among the 29 species recorded before 2009, three were not recovered from 2009 to 2021. Another group of nine species was not recorded in the last five years. However, given the not standardized sampling methodology and the possibility that apparently disappeared species were due to inaccurate iden...

This special issue is a collection of articles about the conservation, restoration and biodiversity of Palaearctic grasslands and was initiated by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group at the 15th Eurasian Dry Grassland Conference (EDGC), held at Graz, Austria in 2019. The papers in this special issue cover a range of grassland habitats from montane dry grasslands to lowland sandy grasslands, feathergrass steppes and meadow steppes, and focus on the biodiversity values, conservation issues and restoration prospects of Palaearctic grasslands. We hope that the articles in this special issue will contribute to a better understanding of the ecology of grasslands and support their more effective conservation.

Palaearctic grasslands are diverse and dynamic ecosystems that are in the focus of ecology, conservation biology and agronomy. This special issue is dedicated to the biodiversity and conservation issues of Palaearctic grasslands and was initiated by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group members attending the 14th Eurasian Dry Grassland Conference (EDGC) at Sulmona, Italy in 2018. The papers in this special issue cover a wide range of grassland ecosystems from mountain dry grasslands to lowland loess grasslands, feathergrass steppes and wet grasslands, and focus on the biodiversity values and conservation issues of Palaearctic grasslands. We believe that this compilation will contribute to a better understanding of the ecology of grasslands and support their more effective conservation.

In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of native vascular flora in Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations and status changes to the Italian administrative regions for taxa in the genera Acer, Alchemilla, Andrachne, Bromus, Clinopodium, Colchicum, Damasonium, Erodium, Festuca, Hieracium, Hyparrhenia, Ipomoea, Linaria, Lolium, Narcissus, Ranunculus, Sisymbrium, Stipa, Valerianella, Vicia, and Zannichellia. New combinations in the genus Ziziphora (Z.sardoa and Z.corsica) and the new subspecies Ulmusminor susbp. canescens are proposed. Furthermore, the name Calaminthaalpinavar.sardoa is here lectotypified. Nomenclatural and distribution updates, published elsewhere, and corrigenda are provided as Suppl. material 1.

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 biodiversi...

In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of vascular flora alien to Italy are presented. It includes new records, and confirmations for Italy or for Italian administrative regions of taxa in the genera Albizia, Anredera, Bougainvillea, Cardamine, Cenchrus, Cephalaria, Ceratochloa, Cytisus, Datura, Delosperma, Euonymus, Freesia, Hylotelephium, Lantana, Musa, Physalis, Rotala, Styphnolobium, Trachycarpus, and Tradescantia. Nomenclature and distribution updates, published elsewhere, and corrections are provided as supplementary material.