Antonio Saracino

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• PhD
• Professor at University of Naples Federico II

This study focused on Pinus mugo dieback in the Maiella massif, categorizing patches into four sections: OUT, FRONT, DEAD, and IN. Vegetation analyses revealed that increased light in DEAD belts promoted higher plant diversity, while OUT belts had the lowest diversity. A high mortality rate in mature trees was followed by recolonization within dieb...

Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri Commissario delegato per gli eccezionali eventi meteorologici verificatisi nei territori dell’Isola di Ischia il 26 novembre 2022 ex OCDPC 948/2022

As major terrestrial carbon sinks, forests play an important role in mitigating climate change. The relationship between the seasonal uptake of carbon and its allocation to woody biomass remains poorly understood, leaving a significant gap in our capacity to predict carbon sequestration by forests. Here, we compare the intra-annual dynamics of carb...

Water transport, mechanical support and storage are the vital functions provided by the xylem. These functions are carried out by different cells, exhibiting significant anatomical variation not only within species but also within individual trees. In this study, we used a comprehensive dataset to investigate the consistency of predicted hydraulic...

Wood growth is key to understanding the feedback of forest ecosystems to the ongoing climate warming. An increase in spatial synchrony (i.e., coincident changes in distant populations) of spring phenology is one of the most prominent climate responses of forest trees. However, whether temperature variability contributes to an increase in the spatia...

The vapor pressure deficit reflects the difference between how much moisture the atmosphere could and actually does hold, a factor that fundamentally affects evapotranspiration, ecosystem functioning, and vegetation carbon uptake. Its spatial variability and long-term trends under natural versus human-influenced climate are poorly known despite bei...

Ectomycorrhizas (ECM) are a common symbiotic association between fungi and various plant species in forest ecosystems, affecting community assemblages at the landscape level. ECMs benefit host plants by increasing the surface area for nutrient uptake, defending against pathogens, and decomposing organic matter in the soil. ECM-symbiotic seedlings a...

In the Mediterranean region of southern Europe, Castanea sativa Mill. (Castanea) coppice stands are being invaded by non-native pioneer tree species due to recurrent coppicing and wildfire disturbances. There is a need to control the spread of non-native tree species in Castanea coppices due to their pivotal socio-economic role, however, to facilit...

Deciphering the spatial patterns of alpine treelines is critical for understanding the ecosystem processes involved in the persistence of tree species and their altitudinal limit. Treelines are thought to be controlled by temperature, and other environmental variables but they have rarely been investigated in regions with different land‐use change...

Despite growing interest in predicting plant phenological shifts, advanced spring phenology by global climate change remains debated. Evidence documenting either small or large advancement of spring phenology to rising temperature over the spatio-temporal scales implies a potential existence of a thermal threshold in the responses of forests to glo...

Past anthropogenic disturbances lowered the altitudinal distribution of the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica forests below 2,000 m a.s.l. Accordingly, our current understanding of the southern distribution range of F. sylvatica forests is restricted to managed stands below this elevation, neglecting relic forests growing above. This study has shed lig...

In recent decades in the Mediterranean basin there has been a considerable increase in both the number of wildfires and the extent of fire-damaged areas, resulting in ecological and socio-economic impacts. Protected areas are particularly vulnerable and many characteristics underpinning their legal protection are threatened. Several studies have be...

Title: Rehabilitation of the areas affected by fire and restoration of ecosystem services in the Mediterranean environment. Abstract: In Mediterranean forests, post-fire rehabilitation and restoration interventions are dictated by the spatial variability of fire severity, topography, erosion-prone soil and the mosaic of wildland-urban interface a...

Wildfires are one of the most important natural disturbances in vegetation biomes. In recent decades, both the number and severity of fires have significantly increased in Mediterranean forests, frequently resulting in catastrophic events. In this scenario, we aimed to explore the flow of ecosystem services and their related economic value that was...

Poplar short rotation coppice (SRC) plantations have great potential for supplying environmentally friendly bio-based industries. However, little research has focussed on the linkages between SRC management regimes and the consumption of water for biomass production in the Mediterranean environment. Therefore, we compared six hybrid clones and four...

Book of abstracts - http://clone2020.unicam.it/

Questions Elevational treelines are expected to shift upwards in response to warming climate. However, worldwide treeline upward shifts are inconsistent because local scale factors can affect the response to temperature. In this study, we explore the hypothesis that in the Apennines, where the current altitudinal treeline position is largely depres...

Understanding processes controlling forest dynamics has become particularly important in the context of ongoing climate change, which is altering the ecological fitness and resilience of species worldwide. However, whether forest communities would be threatened by projected macroclimate change or unaffected due to the controlling effect of local si...

Aims Data about woody debris (WD) decomposition are very scarce for the Mediterranean basin. The specific aim of this work is to explore the relationships between WD traits with the decay rate. Methods We carried out a three-year litterbag decomposition experiment using ten WD types incubated in two plant communities (i.e. shrubland and woodland)...

In their Letter, Elmendorf and Ettinger (1) question the dominant role of photoperiod in driving secondary growth resumption (hereafter referred to as xylem formation onset) of the Northern Hemisphere conifers, recently reported by Huang et al. (2). Their opinions are grounded on the following three aspects, including 1) the seasonality of the phot...

Lungo l' Appennino il limite superiore del bosco di faggio caratterizza il paesaggio montano, delimitando il confine tra bosco e praterie. Sebbene le attività silvo-pastorali dei secoli passati ne abbiano abbassato il limite altitudinale, in lembi remoti il bosco chiuso di faggio giunge oltre i 2000 metri L e escursioni in Appennino sem-brano segui...

Key message Black spruce ecotypes exhibit temperature-adapted bud burst, while bud set is independent of temperature. Warmer conditions could advance bud burst, but no direct effect is expected for bud set Abstract Phenological adjustment is a key adaptive trait closely associated with the environment. Species spreading over a wide geographical ra...

Sperry’s packing rule predicts the optimum packing of xylem conduits in woody plants, where the frequency of xylem conduits varies approximately inversely with the square of the conduit radius. However, it is well established that such anatomical disposition does not remain fixed but is subject to a suite of adaptations induced by physiological con...

Significance Forest trees can live for hundreds to thousands of years, and they play a critical role in mitigating global warming by fixing approximately 15% of anthropogenic CO 2 emissions annually by wood formation. However, the environmental factors triggering wood formation onset in springtime and the cellular mechanisms underlying this onset r...

During the glacial episodes of the Quaternary, European forests were restricted to small favourable spots, namely refugia, acting as biodiversity reservoirs. the Iberian, Italian and Balkan peninsulas have been considered as the main glacial refugia of trees in Europe. In this study, we estimate the composition of the last glacial forest in a coast...

Il pino domestico (Pinus pinea L.) è un albero forestale che l'uomo coltiva da millenni nel Bacino del Mediterraneo. Nelle aree in cui la specie non è considerata di origine naturale, la sua presenza è riconducibile alla diffusione operata dall'uomo e quindi ritenuta archeofita, come sembra essere in Campania. Negli anni più recenti la sua persiste...

In Mediterranean countries, in the year 2017, extensive surfaces of forests were damaged by wildfires. In the Vesuvius National Park, multiple summer wildfires burned 88% of the Mediterranean forest. This unprecedented event in an environmentally vulnerable area suggests conducting spatial assessment of the mixed-severity fire effects for identifyi...

Background Fagus sylvatica forms the treeline across the Apennines mountain range, with an average elevation of 1589 m a.s.l. Previous studies evidenced that the current position of the treeline in the Apennines is heavily depressed as a result of a complex interaction between climatic factors and the past human pressure. In this study we correlate...

There is a current concern that the capacity of urban forests to recover from the effects of climate change may be diminishing. New management options are needed so that they can continue to provide ecosystem services to local communities. After a windstorm occurred on June 2014 pre- and post-disturbance stand conditions (years 2010 and 2015, respe...

Forests are part of a complex landscape mosaic and play a crucial role for people living both in rural and urbanized spaces. Recent progresses in modelling and Decision Support System (DSS) applied to the forestry sector promise to improve public participative forest management and decision-making in planning and conservation issues. However, most...

Aim The aim was to decipher Europe‐wide spatio‐temporal patterns of forest growth dynamics and their associations with carbon isotope fractionation processes inferred from tree rings as modulated by climate warming. Location Europe and North Africa (30‒70° N, 10° W‒35° E). Time period 1901‒2003. Major taxa studied Temperate and Euro‐Siberian tre...

Late spring frost plays a major role in the structure and function of forest ecosystems with potential consequences on species distribution at both local and regional scales. Paradoxically, in a warmer world the incidence and impact of frost is increasing because of earlier leaf unfolding and flowering as a response to warmer temperatures. In this...

In short-rotation coppice, shoots grow at high density and compete for limiting resources with their neighbours. Interactions among shoots translate into individual size differences due to resource apportionment. In the present study we compared shoot dynamics of six hybrid poplars and three wild river genotypes of Populus nigra under the first thr...

Forest managers use artificial regeneration to influence tree species composition and productivity. The selection of plant material could assume a leading role in forest planning, mainly when aiming to increase the adaptation of stands within a context of climate change. In this study, we investigated the timing of bud burst and bud set in five bla...

Aim High‐elevation forest line or tree line is an ecological ecotone representing the upper elevation thermal limit for forest development. The current tree line position is the result of the past human activity interacting with climatic and topographic conditions. In this study, we investigate how climate, local topographic factors and anthropogen...

This study examined the hydrodynamic behaviour of European black poplar (Populus nigra L.) under coppice management in riparian areas with a multidisciplinary approach. An innovative procedure on the basis of the combination of plant allometric relations and hydrodynamic models was applied to assess drag forces and plant hydrodynamic bending as fun...

Plant invasion in forest ecosystems is a serious ecological and economic issue, deserving attention by researchers, managers and policy-makers worldwide. Many invasive plants have been reported as early successional species able to colonize disturbed areas following abrupt changes in microhabitat and resource availability. We investigated disturban...

Litter burning and biological decomposition are oxidative processes co-occurring in many terrestrial ecosystems, producing organic matter with different chemical properties and differently affecting plant growth and soil microbial activity. We tested the chemical convergence hypothesis i.e. materials with different initial chemistry converge toward...

Background and aim Fires affect what happens to litter in ecosystems. Biological and chemical effects of burnt litter on plants are not as of yet fully understood. We aimed to assess the effects of heat-treated leaf litter on germination and seedling root growth of Eucalyptus globulus. Methods Litter from E. globulus, Acacia dealbata, Pinus pinast...

Anthracological analysis was carried out in the archaeological site of Punta di Zambrone on the Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria in southern Italy. Archaeological excavation documented at the site settlement deposits dated mainly to Early Bronze Age (EBA, 21st–18th century BC) and the Recent Bronze Age (RBA, 13th to early 12th century BC). In the phase...

Biochar is nowadays largely used as a soil amendment and is commercialized worldwide. However, in temperate agro-ecosystems the beneficial effect of biochar on crop productivity is limited, with several studies reporting negative crop responses. In this work, we studied the effect of 10 biochar and 9 not pyrogenic organic amendments (NPOA), using p...

During the second half of the 20th century farming systems in hilly and mountainous areas of Mediterranean Europe were progressively abandoned and the forest cover subsequently re-expanded. This paper investigates the environmental impacts of land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes on hydrological ecosystem functions (HEFs) in the Upper Alento River Cat...

Post-fire reproductive niche of Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) is deeply interlaced with fire products. Indeed, the high pH and low osmotic potentials of ash beds under burnt crowns constitute the main constraints to seed germination. In this study, we aim to investigate whether fire recurrence, through the physico-chemical constraints imposed by t...

Key message: Apical dominance ratio (ADR), reported as a suitable indicator for the growth and development ofAbies alba, is concurrently determined by morphological and functional plant traits. Structural equation modeling (SEM) proved here to be an effective multivariate technique to represent the contribution of different variables in explaining...

Deciphering large-scale spatiotemporal patterns of tree performance is essential to forecast global responses of forest ecosystems to environmental changes and their function as carbon sinks. Long-term information can be gained through the analysis of stable isotopes in tree rings as surrogates of plant carbon and water economies. We characterized...

Litter burning and biological decomposition are oxidative processes co-occurring in many terrestrial ecosystems, producing organic matter with different chemical properties and differently affecting plant growth and soil microbial activity. Here, we tested the chemical convergence hypothesis (i.e. materials with different initial chemistry tend to...

A methodological approach based on detailed land-use map, high-resolution LiDAR data and field surveys was developed to categorize productive and non-productive mixed forests, both in term of stand attributes and structural-diversity. In 2011, leaf-off dedicated airborne LiDAR data were collected in a 20,000 ha inland patchy area which was represen...

Developing long-term chronologies of tree-ring anatomical features to evaluate climatic relationships within species might serve as an annual proxy to explore and elucidate the climatic drivers affecting xylem differentiation. Pinus leucodermis response to climate was examined by analyzing vertical xylem resin ducts in wood growing at high elevatio...

This paper presents the results of inter-disciplinary work drawing on archaeobotanical and archaeometric studies to trace the agroforestry landscape and the supply economy at the vicus of Thamusida in north-west Morocco at the border of the Roman Empire. The available data indicate the self-sufficiency of the settlement in both forestry and agricul...

The interaction between xylem phenology and climate assesses forest growth and productivity and carbon storage across biomes under changing environmental conditions. We tested the hypothesis that patterns of wood formation are maintained unaltered despite the temperature changes across cold ecosystems. Wood microcores were collected weekly or biwee...

In mountainous areas of Mediterranean Europe farming systems have been subjected to progressive abandonment and subsequent expansion of forest during the second half of the 20th century. Therefore, an in-depth knowledge of the influence of afforestation on catchment-scale budget helps define proper trade-offs in regulating and provisioning Hydrolog...

FAO, 2016. Abstracts of Submitted Papers prepared for the 25th Session of the International Poplar Commission, jointly hosted by FAO and the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Berlin, Germany, 13-16 September 2016. International Poplar Commission Working Paper IPC/14. Forestry Policy and Resources Division, FAO, Rome. Published at htt...

In the Mediterranean region, the widely predicted rise in temperature, change in the precipitation pattern, and increase in the frequency of extreme climatic events are expected to alter the shape of ecological communities and to affect plant physiological processes that regulate ecosystem functioning. Although change in the mean values are importa...

We present the results of a dendrochronological study carried out on timbers from the monastic abbey Grancìa of Brindisi di Montagna in Southern Italy. Our objective was to date cross-sections of oak (Quercus spp.) taken from structural timbers to determine the felling dates, the time span covered by the series and to evaluate whether the retrieved...

Aims Facilitation has been reported in a wide range of plant communities, with evidence of positive interactions between beneficiary and nurse plants shifting during their ontogenetic development. This study explored the hypothesis that shrubs of Juniperus communis subsp. nana (thereafter Juniperus ) play a crucial role in the successional sequence...

In this paper, we present a detailed record of the plant remains recovered on the palaeo-seafloors of Neapolis harbour, spanning ≈700 years, between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD, thus intersecting the entire Roman Imperial Age. The site preserved many cultivated or cultivable plant remains, especially from food related trees. This part...

In some municipalities, located within the boundaries of the Vesuvius National Park (Campania Region, southern Italy), several area with forest cover of Pinus pinea showed severe withering of the crowns and damage to pine cones. In the present study, we have isolated in the period May 2013 – May 2014 from Ercolano, San Sebastiano, Terzigno, Torre d...

1. The stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH) predicts that the balance of plant-plant interactions shifts along abiotic environmental gradients, with facilitation becoming more frequent under stressful conditions. However, recent studies challenged this perspective, reporting that positive interactions are, in some cases, more common at the intermediate...

Regardless of the fact that urban forests can be considered as urban woods and woodland or as individual trees, their benefits and uses range from indefinable psychological and aesthetic benefits to amelioration of urban climate and mitigation of air pollution and surely they represent the most prominent elements of urban nature. The presence in th...

La biomassa forestale è attualmente la principale fonte di energia rinnovabile, rappresentando circa la metà di quella consumata nell’Unione Europea. Obiettivo per il 2020 è il raggiungimento del 20% di energia da fonti rinnovabili di cui il 42% rappresentato da biomasse. A tale obiettivo possono contribuire le piantagioni arboree da legno a turno...

Phylogeographical scenario for the diversification of the Soldanella genus during the Pleistocene.

Figure S1. Abaxial (left) and adaxial (right) side of the leaves of Soldanella sacra. Figure S2. (a) stalked glandular hair of leaf petioles, (b) stalked glandular hair of pedicels and (c) non-stalked glandular hair of the adaxial side of calyx lobes. Glandular hairs in (c) are morphologically similar to the non-stalked glandular hairs of leaf pet...

Background: The populations of Soldanella (Primulaceae) of the southern Apennines (Italy) are unique within the genus for their distribution and ecology. Their highly fragmented distribution range, with three main metapopulations on some of the highest mountains (Gelbison, Sila and Aspromonte massifs) of the area, poses intriguing questions about t...