Giovanbattista D. De Dato

• Forestry
• Loaned expert at Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Key message We provide data on seedlot germination potential—a key trait related to regeneration—of 12 oak species. Germination was tested at the University of Granada following international protocols with 8985 acorns from 93 batches and 16 countries across Europe. Data on germination probability, acorn origin, mass, and moisture content measured...

Conservation, characterization and exploitation of agrobiodiversity are key factors to guarantee food security and face future challenges such as climate changes. These issues are the subject of a series of international agreements, such as the Convention of Biological Diversity, with its Nagoya Protocol, and the International Treaty on Plant Genet...

Purpose of Review In this review, we synthesise current knowledge on trade-offs among traits in key fitness dimensions and identify major research gaps with the intention of laying the groundwork for a rapid advance in tree breeding for multiple objectives as a key contribution to the sustainability of planted forests in the future. Recent Finding...

Purpose of Review. In this review, we synthesize current knowledge on trade-offs among traits in key fitness dimensions and identify major research gaps with the intention of laying the groundwork for a rapid advance in tree breeding for multiple objectives as a key contribution to the sustainability of planted forests in the future. Recent Finding...

In the last 25 years, almost 50 million hectares of primary forest have been lost due to deforestation. Numerous international initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge and the New York Declaration on Forests have set ambitious goals to restore degraded and deforested lands by 2030. Realizing global commitments on forest and landscape restoration (FLR...

The relationship between the quality of forest seedlings and their outplanting survival and growth has long been recognized. Various attributes have been proposed to measure the quality of planted seedlings in forest regeneration projects, ranging from simple morphological traits to more complex physiological and performance attributes, or a combin...

Shrubland ecosystems across Europe face a range of threats including the potential impacts of climate change. Within the INCREASE project, six shrubland ecosystems along a European climatic gradient were exposed to ecosystem-level year-round experimental nighttime warming and long-term, repeated growing season droughts. We quantified the ecosystem...

Changing ecosystem conditions and diverse socio-economical events have contributed to an ingrained presence of non-native tree species (NNTs) in the natural and cultural European landscapes. Recent research endeavors have focused on different aspects of NNTs such as legislation, benefits, and risks for forestry, emphasizing that large knowledge gap...

Verifying the match of a timber log with its population of origin represents a meaningful improvement for the preservation and valorisation of the wood chain. In this study, we tested the applicability of the molecular approach for tracing the supply chain of timber of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) to check if the declared source of timber tr...

Purpose of Review Recognizing that in the context of global change, tree genetic diversity represents a crucial resource for future forest adaptation, we review and highlight the major forest genetics research achievements of the past decades in biodiversity-rich countries of the Mediterranean region. For this, we conducted a bibliometric analysis...

Presented at the XIII SISEF (Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology) National Congress held in Orvieto (Terni - Italia) on 31st of May - 2nd of June 2022, the national contribution to the FAO SoW FGR (Survey of World Forest Genetic Resources).

In the upcoming years, the challenge of the exponential growth in tree planting activities matching climate crisis, which requires the use of targeted and adapted plant material, calls for creating an updated framework of the Italian forest nursery sector, for both basic materials (BM) and for forest reproductive materials (FRM). The present paper...

The motivations for the National Research Project on the Short Wood Supply Chain stem from the recognition of the great importance of the wood-based bio-economy for the future carbon-free society. In addition to the essential ecological benefits provided by forests, natural wood resources are expected to play a significant role due to the increasin...

This Special Issue, focused on the study of different “Mechanisms of Adaptation of Trees and Shrubs to Dry and Hot Environments”, would be a humble tribute to A [...]

Net ecosystem CO2 exchange is the result of net carbon uptake by plant photosynthesis and carbon loss by soil and plant respiration. Temperature increases due to climate change can modify the equilibrium between these fluxes and trigger ecosystem‐climate feedbacks that can accelerate climate warming. As these dynamics have not been well‐studied in...

Anche ciliegi e olmi scappano dal caldo cercando un clima migliore. La vite e l'olivo oggi possono essere coltivati nei Paesi nordici. Abeti, larici e faggi invece potrebbero scomparire da molte regioni. Turismo, erosione genetica e innalzamento delle isoterme minacciano, ad esempio, l'esistenza dell'abete dei Nebrodi. Negli anni Sessanta ne esiste...

In the main distribution area the genetic pattern of silver birch is dominated by two haplotypes: haplotype A located in the western and north-western Europe, and haplotype C in eastern and southeastern Europe, characterized by high levels of neutral genetic variability within populations, and low differentiation among populations. Information abou...

Water availability is a major limiting factor in plant productivity and plays a key role in plant species distribution over a given area. New technologies, such as terahertz quantum cascade lasers (THz-QCLs) have proven to be non-invasive, effective, and accurate tools for measuring and monitoring leaf water content. This study explores the feasibi...

New IUFRO Task Force presentation at the Iufro Board Enlarged Meeting, held in Curitiba (Brasil) on 26-27 September 2019.

Presented the 26 September 2018, Alghero, Italy. A southernmost cork oak provenance (VIL) showed to be more prone to respond to drought (-35%FC), adjusting its LMA, increasing its iWUE and showing higher phenotypic plasticity. This result is confirmed also by the isotopic carbon discrimination analysis on soluble sugars. • The longest drought durat...

The assessment of seed zones or regions of provenance (RoP) to preserve local adaptation of tree species is an effective tool for the correct management of forest reproductive materials. The RoP for a species or sub-species is the area or group of areas subject to sufficiently uniform ecological conditions in which stands or seed sources show simil...

Understanding how different combinations of plant functional traits contribute to species fitness is a question of considerable ecological interest, that can give insights into the mechanisms controlling community assembly, and into the processes by which climate change can modify plant community structure and composition. We investigated the chang...

Hydrological cycle is expected to become the primary cause of ecosystem's degradation in near future under changing climate. Rain manipulation experiments under field conditions provide accurate picture on the responses of biotic processes to changed water availability for plants. A field experiment, mimicking expected changes in rain patterns, was...

Long‐term climate change experiments are extremely valuable for studying ecosystem responses to environmental change. Examination of the vegetation and the soil should be non‐destructive to guarantee long‐term research. In this paper, we review field methods using isotope techniques for assessing carbon dynamics in the plant–soil–air continuum, bas...

Marginal population and some experiment on assisted gene flow in oaks Ducci F. 1*, Proietti R.1, de Dato G. 1, Monteverdi M. C. 1, Belletti P.2, Calvo E.3, Ayan S.4 Key words: Marginal populations, Quercus robur, pedunculate oak, assisted gene flow, Po valley Pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) and sessile oak (Q. petraea (Matt.) Liebl.) are wide...

Pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) and sessile oak (Q. petraea (Matt.) Liebl.) are widely distributed in fertile valleys and floodplains in Europe. They derive from a common ancestral taxon and are interfertile. Partially sympatric, they share similar habitats, but in different eco-pedological areas. Interfertility is typically unidirectional with...

Water availability, together with temperature, represents the most limiting abiotic factor regulating soil CO2 efflux (SR). Besides the direct effect of water limitation, drought also influences plant activity, determining changes in the quality and quantity of root exudates, thus indirectly affecting soil microbial activity. To determine how the s...

Regions of Provenances (RoP) are a mandatory tool for the management of forest genetic resources for each EU Member State. The ecological variability of the environment and the genetic structure of forest species are the two main pillars for construction of RoP. In Italy, differently to other European Countries (e.g. Belgium, France, Germany, Slova...

Above- and belowground carbon (C) stores of terrestrial ecosystems are vulnerable to environmental change. Ecosystem C balances in response to environmental changes have been quantified at individual sites, but the magnitudes and directions of these responses along environmental gradients remain uncertain. Here we show the responses of ecosystem C...

A transient state canopy-chamber was developed to monitor CO2 exchange of shrubland ecosystems. The chamber covered 0.64 m 2 and it was modular with a variable height. Several tests were carried out to check the potential errors in the flux estimates due to leakages and the environment modifications during the measurements inside the chamber. The l...

Soil respiration (SR) is a major component of the global carbon cycle and plays a fundamental role in ecosystem feedback to climate change. Empirical modelling is an essential tool for predicting ecosystem responses to environmental change, and also provides important data for calibrating and corroborating process-based models. In this study, we ev...

Significance One of the greatest challenges in projecting future shifts in the global climate is understanding how soil respiration rates will change with warming. Multiple experimental warming studies have explored this response, but no consensus has been reached. Based on a global synthesis of 27 experimental warming studies spanning nine biomes,...

full text : http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/514680/ Field experiments that expose terrestrial ecosystems to climate change factors by manipulations are expensive to maintain, and typically only last a few years. Plant biomass is commonly used to assess responses to climate treatments and to predict climate change impacts. However, response to the treatment...

During the last glacial age, in Southern Europe tree populations moved in the southernmost latitudes on the Italian Appenines and Southern Balkans and colonized lower altitudes as well. All major biomes in Europe contain Marginal/Peripheral (MaP) populations of forest tree species, whose persistance is threatened by climate change. Under these circ...

Gestione delle risorse genetiche della douglasia in Italia in relazione agli scenari dei cambiamenti globali introduzione Questo lavoro ha lo scopo illustrare lo sviluppo storico delle ricerche e spe-rimentazioni relative agli aspetti genetici e di miglioramento genetico in Ita-lia relativamente alla douglasia (Pseudotsuga menziesii). La sua introd...

Gestione delle risorse genetiche della douglasia in Italia in relazione agli scenari dei cambiamenti globali introduzione Questo lavoro ha lo scopo illustrare lo sviluppo storico delle ricerche e spe-rimentazioni relative agli aspetti genetici e di miglioramento genetico in Ita-lia relativamente alla douglasia (Pseudotsuga menziesii). La sua introd...

Human domination of the biosphere includes changes to disturbance regimes, which push many ecosystems towards early-successional states. Ecological theory predicts that early-successional ecosystems are more sensitive to perturbations than mature systems, but little evidence supports this relationship for the perturbation of climate change. Here we...

Mediterranean countries are expected to experience a notable increase in average air temperatures and an alteration of precipitation patterns, distribution, intensity and duration, as a result of global climate changes. In this region, wetlands and coastal areas are increasingly at risk, as they are particularly exposed to a range of hazards connec...

As a key component of the carbon cycle, soil CO2 efflux (SCE) is being increasingly studied to improve our mechanistic understanding of this important carbon flux. Predicting ecosystem responses to climate change often depends on extrapolation of current relationships between ecosystem processes and their climatic drivers to conditions not yet expe...

Climate change conditions are expected to have significant impacts on soil water balance where evapotranspiration (ET) is the most important component. In the last decades, most studies focused on the development of methods for estimating the actual evapotranspiration (ETa) in agricultural systems (e.g. water demand of crops under climate change)....

As a key component of the carbon cycle, soil CO2 efflux (SCE) is being increasingly studied to improve our mechanistic understanding of this important carbon flux. Predicting ecosystem responses to climate change often depends on extrapolation of current relationships between ecosystem processes and their climatic drivers to conditions not yet expe...

The increased concentration of atmospheric GHG gases has increased the Earth surface temperature. Also in the Mediterranean basin the temperatures have shown a warming trend, but frequently the temperature is not seen as a limiting factor for plant growth and the warming effect is often considered only in terms of warming’s influence on water avail...

The Mediterranean vegetation is characterized by a high diversity of growth forms, habits and phenology that enable it to endure under harsh environmental conditions. It is however unclear whether these adaptations may allow plant survival under more extreme conditions, as predicted by climatic models under the perspective of climate change. A mani...

Infrared reflective (IR) curtains have been widely used to obtain passive nighttime warming in field ecosystem experiments in order to simulate and study climate warming effects on ecosystems. For any field installation with IR-reflective curtains in an ecosystem the achieved heating effect depends on the heat gain determined by the stored energy d...

In the Mediterranean climates water stress is considered to be the main environmental factor limiting plant growth. In front of water limitations plants have developed a wide diversity of adaptation mechanism, and co-occurring species often display different physiological, functional, and life history strategies. In the contest of a rainfall exclus...

In the Mediterranean climates water stress is considered to be the main environmental factor limiting plant growth. In front of water limitations plants have developed a wide diversity of adaptation mechanism, and co-occurring species often display different physiological, functional, and life history strategies. In the contest of a rainfall exclus...

Seasonal changes of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of terrestrial ecosystems are the result of different interactions between CO2 assimilation (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) with environmental drivers. There is still debate about to which extent low soil moisture (drought) and increased temperature (warming) can affect GPP or ER depending on bo...

We review observational, experimental, and model results on how plants respond to extreme climatic conditions induced by changing climatic variability. Distinguishing between impacts of changing mean climatic conditions and changing climatic variability on terrestrial ecosystems is generally underrated in current studies. The goals of our review ar...

Infrared reflective (IR) curtains have been widely used to obtain passive nighttime warming in field ecosystem experiments in order to simulate and study climate warming effects on ecosystems. For any field installation with IR-reflective curtains in an ecosystem the achieved heating effect depends on the heat gain determined by the stored energy d...

In the Mediterranean basin, Tamarix spp. constitute important populations along rivers and sea coasts, and might be primarily subjected to water level fluctuations and salinization, as a consequence of global climate change. Here, we analyze leaf gas exchange and xylem anatomy during a water level decrease below the soil surface after short-term fl...

In Mediterranean coastal areas, changes in precipitation patterns and seawater levels are leading to increased frequency of flooding and to salinization of estuaries and freshwater systems. Tamarix spp. are often the only woody species growing in such environments. These species are known for their tolerance to moderate salinity; however, contrasti...

Predicting impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystem functioning is a big scientific challenge. Large-scale manipulation experiments may provide realistic estimates of the responses of biological processes to changes in their principal regulators such as temperature, CO2, and water availability. A field drought manipulation experiment has...

Revegetation and afforestation of abandoned fields can modify mineralisation processes of soil organic matter and, as a consequence, the potential for C sequestration. Our work aimed to analyse these changes identifying C fractions with different degrees of physical protection and potential mineralization, in a old-field revegetated with shrubby sp...

The rapid growth of population, the increased urbanisation and the expansion of industrial activities have provoked an augmented occurrence of soil contamination by heavy-metals. Important sources of contamination are industrial, mining and military infrastructures, which are often abandoned without performing the appropriate reclamation work. In t...

The seasonal changes of net ecosystem exchange of terrestrial ecosystems (NEE), is the result of the different interactions of assimilation (GPP) and total ecosystem respiration (TER) with the environmental drivers. In the Mediterranean garrigue object of our study, the length and the intensity of the summer drought is the main determinant of the e...

Life on the earth is highly dependent on the properties and functions of water. In front of water limitation plants have developed a wide diversity of adaptation mechanism, ranging from molecular to whole plant level. The present work is focused on the adaptations to summer drought of Cistus monspeliensis L., one of the most widespread species in t...

In order to investigate how the forecast more stressing factors could affect Mediterranean shrubland ecosystems, an appropriate manipulation of the microclimate was carried out in a garrigue community dominated by Cistus monspeliensis located in the NW of Sardinia [1]. The response of this species to the warming (+1 °C, mean annual temperature) and...

Forested areas are important in arid and semi-arid regions primarily to combat desertification, but also to increase carbon sinks. According to the last Italian National Inventory of Forest and Carbon INFC dated 2005, Mediterranean maquis and shrublands cover about 690,100 ha, in Italy. Considering their vast diffusion, efforts should be done to ev...

Where water is a limiting factor, like in arid and semiarid shrubland ecosystems of the Mediterranean basin, soil moisture, strengthen by high temperatures, is the key limiting factor controlling biogeochemical cycles. During the drought season, the unavailable water reduces plant growth, litter decomposition and microbial soil respiration. In orde...

In arid and semiarid shrubland ecosystems of the Mediterranean basin, soil moisture is a key factor controlling biogeochemical cycles and the release of CO2 via soil respiration. This is influenced by increasing temperatures. We manipulated the microclimate in a Mediterranean shrubland to increase the soil and air night-time temperatures and to red...

Shrublands constitute significant and important parts of European landscapes providing a large number of important ecosystem services. Biogeochemical cycles in these ecosystems have gained little attention relative to forests and grassland systems, but data on such cycles are required for developing and testing ecosystem models. As climate change p...

Aim To test whether the onset of spring growth in European shrublands is advanced in response to the warmer conditions projected for the next two decades by climate models, and, if there is a change, whether it differs across Europe. Location The studied sites spanned a broad north–south European gradient with average annual temperatures (8.2–15.6...

Forested areas are important in arid and semi-arid regions primarily to combat desertification, but also to increase carbon sinks. To reverse the land degradation processes, restoration in the Mediterranean Basin had been frequently obtained by planting indigenous and exotic conifers, but it has been demonstrated that shrubs are nurse species for t...

The last IPCC report predicts warmer and drier conditions for the future European climate and the Mediterranean basin could be highly sensible to future climatic change. In order to investigate how the forecast more stressing factors could affect Mediterranean shrubland ecosystems, an appropriate manipulation of the microclimate was carried out in...

Root-surface phosphatase activities were measured in natural and semi-natural shrublands across an European climatic gradient of temperature and rainfall including Wales (WL), Denmark (DK), Netherlands (NL), Hungary (HU), Italy (IT) and Spain (SP). In each site a warming experiment was conducted since 1999 or 2001 by means of passive night-time war...

We used a nonintrusive field experiment carried out at six sites – Wales (UK), Denmark (DK), the Netherlands (NL), Hungary (HU), Sardinia (Italy – IT), and Catalonia (Spain – SP) – along a climatic and latitudinal gradient to examine the response of plant species richness and primary productivity to warming and drought in shrubland ecosystems. The...

The last IPCC report predicts warmer and drier conditions for the future European climate and the Mediterranean basin could be highly sensible to future climatic change. In order to investigate how the forecast more stressing factors could affect Mediterranean shrubland ecosystems, an appropriate manipulation of the microclimate was carried out in...

Riassunto Nel presente lavoro viene descritta l'organizzazione di un'area sperimentale-dimostrativa di rivegetazione nei pressi di Alghero (SS), caratterizzata da un clima tipicamente mediterraneo. L'impianto è stato realizzato utilizzando piante di origine autoctona di ginepro fenicio, rosmarino e lentisco. Tre tipologie di parcelle a differente c...

Climate change scenarios foresee for the southern Europe and the Mediterranean area an increase in temperature and a decrease of summer precipitations, and consequently an extension of the summer dryness. Soil CO2 emission is a relevant amount of the total carbon emissions to the atmosphere, and it is linked to soil temperature and soil water conte...

A new long-term experimental area for studying the effects of climate warming and seasonal drought on a Mediterranean shrubland community. Global changes, such as land use changes, altered atmosphere composition, and climate changes, have been altering the functioning of ecosystems with possible impacts on the degree of biodiversity. Temperature an...

Evergreen sclerophyll shrubland is a prominent feature of Mediterranean Basin. Elevated temperatures and extended drought period are predicted to have a large influence on the functioning of natural and semi-natural environments both directly and through interactions with land management and pollutant loading (Larcher, 2000; Llorens et al., 2003)....