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Introduction
I’m a botanist with a strong focus on Lichenology. My research activity includes floristics, taxonomy, distribution, and conservation of lichens in terrestrial ecosystems. I'm also interested in historical herbaria to unravel their botanical memory.
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January 2007 - December 2013
Publications
Publications (270)
On the basis of literature, and herbarium data and new field research, we provide a diachronic floristic inventory of a small alkaline fen meadow close to the southern border of the Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park (Veneto, N-Italy), whose toponymal is “Torbiera di Lipoi”. Overall, 319 infrageneric taxa were listed. Results indicate that, despite n...
In this study, we focused on the bedrock-dependent effects of climate change on terricolous lichen communities along elevational gradients in the Alps. In particular, we contrasted between carbonatic and siliceous bedrock, hypothesizing more favourable conditions on siliceous than on carbonatic bedrock, where dryer conditions may exacerbate the eff...
In this contribution, new data concerning algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records, confirmations or exclusions for the algal genera Chara and Tolypella, the bryophyte genera Pogonatum, Pseudephemerum, and Riella, the fungal genera Arrhenia, Arthonia, Buchwaldoboletus, Dacampia, Hebeloma, Inoc...
Habitat loss is the main driver of biodiversity decline worldwide. An immediate consequence can be extinction debt, i.e. time-delayed extinction of species following habitat loss. We tested extinction debt in terricolous lichen communities in 45 patches of lowland open dry habitats in the western Po Plain (northern Italy) considering richness of fo...
This paper provides an overall look on the diversity of lowland dry grasslands of the western Po Plain, useful to support their conservation and management. Specific aims were: 1) to identify lowland dry grassland-associated plant communities at alliance level, which is useful for their classification under the Council Directive 92/43/EEC, 2) to as...
In this contribution, new data concerning algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the algal genera Chara and Nitella, the bryophyte genera Brachythecium, Didymodon, Fissidens, Physcomitrium, and Riccia, the fungal genera Biatoropsis, Cantharellus, Coprinellus, Dacrymyces...
Mountain biota survived the Quaternary cold stages in peripheral refugia and/or ice-free peaks within ice-sheets (nunataks). While survival in peripheral refugia has been broadly demonstrated, evidence for nunatak refugia is still scarce. We generated RADseq data from three mountain plant species occurring at different elevations in the southeaster...
Aurifodinae were open-pit gold mines of the Roman age which left behind them elongated heaps of rounded stones. They are located in lowland semi-natural landscapes, and can be seen as screes at a lower altitude and in a milder climate than typical mountain screes. We investigated the lichen biota of the aurifodinae remains in the upper Ticino river...
Mountain biota survived the Quaternary cold stages most probably in peripheral refugia and/or ice-free peaks within ice-sheets (nunataks). While survival in peripheral refugia has been broadly demonstrated, evidence for nunatak refugia is still scarce. We generated RADseq data from three mountain plant species occurring at different elevations in t...
Lichens and bryophytes contribute to regulating the forest microclimate and support ecosystem functions. Exploring the thermal heterogeneity at a trunk-level may help elucidate the effect of thermoregulation of epiphytes. We hypothesized that (i) the thermal patterns of epiphytic communities depend on the microclimatic conditions of the surrounding...
The Dolichens project provides the first dynamic inventory of the lichens of the Dolomites (Eastern Alps, Italy). Occurrence records were retrieved from published and grey literature, reviewed herbaria, unpublished records collected by the authors, and new sampling campaigns, covering a period from 1820 to 2022. Currently, the dataset contains 56,2...
In the last decades, lichenological studies started again in Lombardia (N Italy), where locally overlooked situations persist. One of such areas is the southernmost part of the Pavese Apennine, where the highest mountains of the Province of Pavia are located. We report the results of a thorough lichen survey carried out in the Natura 2000 Habitat 9...
In this contribution, new data concerning algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the algal genera Acetabularia , Nitella , and Nitellopsis for the bryophyte genera Drepanocladus , Fissidens , Hookeria , and Weissia , the fungal genera Alnicola , Arthonia , Cortinarius,...
We analysed the spatially explicit floristic information available in the herbarium of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1551–1586) to track floristic changes in the surroundings of Bologna across five centuries. Aldrovandi's data were compared with the Flora della Provincia di Bologna by Girolamo Cocconi (1883) and the Floristic Database of Emilia-Romagna (1965–...
Lobaria pulmonaria (L.) Hoffm. is a tripartite, broad-lobed foliose lichen usually found on bark and on epiphytic and epilithic mosses in humid forests. Currently, the species is threatened in most European countries because of its sensitivity to environmental alterations. In this paper, a total of 107 previous studies across more than 50 years wer...
The species–area relationship (SAR) states that species richness increases with the increase of the sampled area, although other factors can influence the pattern. SARs have been tested on many different organisms, but only rarely on lichens. We aimed to test the SAR, across a wide range of area sizes, for three main substratum-related guilds of li...
Survival of Quaternary cold stages in peripheral refugia and/or ice-free peaks within ice-sheets (nunataks) has likely (co)shaped the genetic structure of temperate mountain biota. We used three altitudinally segregated species endemic to the Dolomites and the adjacent Carnic Prealps in the southeastern European Alps to perform genetic structure an...
In this contribution, the conservation status assessment of three vascular plants are presented according to IUCN categories and criteria. It includes the assessment of Oryza rhizomatis D.A.Vaughan and Saxifraga facchinii W.D.J.Koch at a global level and Helianthemum caput-felis Boiss. at a regional level.
Essiccare le piante per scopo di studio, confronto e scambio fra studiosi era divenuto una prassi dalla prima metàdel XVI secolo grazie all’opera di Luca Ghini, fondatore degli orti botanici di Pisa e Firenze. Fra i pochi erbari rinascimentali oggi conosciuti, quello di Ulisse Aldrovandi occupa un posto di primo piano per quantità e varietà dei cam...
The European biodiversity and forest strategies rely on forest sustainable management (SFM) to conserve forest biodiversity. However, current sustainability assessments hardly account for direct biodiversity indicators. We focused on forest multi-taxon biodiversity to: i) gather and map the existing information; ii) identify knowledge and research...
In this contribution, new data concerning Algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the algal genus Nitella , for the bryophyte genera Anthoceros , Dicranodontium , Fontinalis , and Riccia , the fungal genera Inocybe and Xerophorus , and the lichen genera Bagliettoa , Biat...
This work summarizes the results of the exploration of freshwater lichen biota on the island of Sardinia associated with the regional flagship species Lobothallia hydrocharis, a large-sized crustose lichen from the splash zone along mountain streams, so far known from Sardinia only. Molecular data were used to confirm its distinctiveness from other...
Identifying areas susceptible to invasion by an alien species is a strategy of prevention. We used national herbaria and global databases to assess the invasion trends of the two aquatic invasive species Ludwigia hexapetala and Ludwigia peploides subsp. montevidensis in Italy. We defined the invasion status with invasions curves and predicted poten...
Nonvascular photoautotrophs (NVP), including bryophytes, lichens, terrestrial algae, and cyanobacteria, are increasingly recognized as being essential to ecosystem functioning in many regions of the world. Current research suggests that climate change may pose a substantial threat to NVP, but the extent to which this will affect the associated ecos...
A checklist of 916 lichenised taxa is reported from the Paneveggio-Pale di San Martino Natural Park and its surroundings (Trentino-Alto Adige, N Italy), based on 7351 records from: (a) 72 literature sources, (b) eight public and private herbaria and (c) field observations by some of the authors. The study area appears as a hotspot of lichen diversi...
Lichens are symbiotic organisms sensitive to climate change and susceptible to a severe decline in diversity, especially in high elevation environments that are already threatened. In this study, we focused on water-energy relationships derived from climatic variables and phylogenetic diversity indices of terricolous lichen communities occurring on...
In this contribution, new data concerning bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the algal genus Chara , for the bryophyte genera Bryum , Grimmia , Cephaloziella , Hypnum , Nogopterium , Physcomitrium , Polytrichastrum , Rhynchostegiella , Saelania , and Schistostega , the fun...
We analysed the invasion history of two North American macrophytes (Elodea canadensis and E. nuttallii) in Italy, through an accurate census of all available herbarium and field records, dating between 1850 and 2019, and a rich literature collection describing the initial introduction and naturalisation phase that supports the results obtained by t...
Lichens are poikilohydric organisms, whose internal water content tends to reflect external humidity conditions. After drying, they can reactivate their metabolic activity through water vapor uptake or liquid water input. Thus, lichen water-related functional traits are important as they are involved in the duration of the hydrated period. Models p...
The importance of collection, storage and exchange of georeferenced vegetation plot-based data has significantly grown in the recent decades, because of the new potentialities offered by ecoinformatics. In this article we introduce the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna vegetation database (AMS-VegBank; GIVD code EU-IT-021) compiling 17,5...
The genus Brassica includes some of the most important vegetable and oil crops worldwide. Many Brassica seeds (which can show diagnostic characters useful for species identification) were recovered from two archaeological sites in northern Italy, dated from between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We tested the combined use of archaeobotanical...
Global changes are recognized as one of the main drivers of biodiversity changes over time, especially in mountain ecosystems. A key approach to detect and investigate the effect of climate and land use change on these ecosystems is represented by vegetation surveys. In this study, based on the resurvey of historical vegetation data, we assessed te...
Forests will be critical to mitigate the effects of climate and global changes. Therefore, knowledge on the drivers of forest area changes are important. Although the drivers of deforestation are well known, drivers of afforestation are almost unexplored. Moreover, protected areas (PAs) effectively decrease deforestation, but other types of area‐ba...
Cryptogams are important components of global biodiversity , underpin key ecosystem functions and are vulnerable to global change. However, they are still often neglected in conservation research and management, and Red List Assessment remain challenging. This satellite event aimed at discussing progress, challenges and synergies in the conservatio...
Terricolous lichens, threatened in many areas of Europe, have been greatly overlooked in conservation policies. This work provides a provisional Red List of the terricolous lichens of Italy, to favour their inclusion in conservation policies. The taxa were assigned to IUCN categories according to a simplified assessment procedure based on their rar...
Lichens are a type of fungi that live in close relationships with algae or bacteria. Unfortunately, the future is not looking very bright for these organisms, because they have no protective structures and are sensitive to environmental change. The lung lichen is a large species that, in the upcoming years, will find itself in trouble. Climate chan...
In this contribution, new data concerning bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the bryophyte genera Bryum , Cryphaea , Didymodon , and Grimmia ; the fungal genera Bryostigma , Cercidospora , Conocybe , Cortinarius , Endococcus , Inocybe , Psathyrella , and Sphaerellothecium...
Climate change is already causing considerable reductions in biodiversity in all terrestrial ecosystems. These consequences are expected to be exacerbated in biomes that are particularly exposed to change, such as those in the Mediterranean, and in certain groups of more sensitive organisms, such as epiphytic lichens. These poikylohydric organisms...
Climate change is expected to threaten endemic plants in the Alps. In this context, the factors that may modulate species responses are rarely investigated at a local scale. We analyzed eight alpine narrow endemics of the Dolomites (southeastern Alps) under different predicted climate change scenarios at fine spatial resolutions. We tested possible...
Microclimatic conditions are important in determining lichen distribution at small scale, and may determine whether the species persist when the surrounding environmental conditions have drastically changed. This is the case with forest management, since a sudden variation of microclimatic conditions (increase of solar radiation, temperature, wind...
We report 510 records of 58 species belonging to the three lichen genera Cladonia P. Browne, Nephroma Ach. and Peltigera Willd. from 57 sites in the Prealps and Alps of Lombardia (Northern Italy). Four mountain sectors were investigated: the Orobic Prealps and Alps (19 sites), the Brescia Prealps (9 sites), the Adamello massif (8 sites), and the Rh...
Applications and acceptance of phytoscreening, i.e., the use of trees as screening tools for underground contamination, are still limited in many countries due to the lack of awareness of application policies, the intrinsic qualitative nature of the technique, and the paucity of critical analyses on available data. To date, the conditions influenci...
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 t...
In this study we used a terricolous lichen (Cetraria islandica) as bioaccumulator of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) to explore spatial patterns of air pollutant deposition along elevational gradients in the Majella Massif (Italy). Samples of C. islandica were collected at 200 m intervals along 6 transects from 1600 to 2600 m, both along the east...
Epiphytic lichens were surveyed in the “Bosco Siro Negri” Integral Nature State Reserve (province of Pavia, Lombardy, NW Italy), which hosts a well-preserved fragment of oak-elm floodplain forest (Natura 2000 Habitat 91F0). The core woodland fragment hosted only four species on the tree boles, i.e. Lepraria finkii plus the forest specialists Coenog...
In this contribution, new data concerning bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records, confirmations or exclusions for the bryophyte genera Acaulon , Campylopus , Entosthodon , Homomallium , Pseudohygrohypnum , and Thuidium , the fungal genera Entoloma , Cortinarius , Mycenella , Oxyporus , and Psathyre...
Sacred natural sites (SNS) have gained recognition from conservationists, and are regarded as the oldest form of habitat protection in human history. Many case studies and literature reviews have been published on the subject. However, an updated and global-level synthesis on the effect of SNS on biodiversity conservation is still lacking. Here, we...
Conversion of semi-natural habitats, such as field margins, fallows, hedgerows, grassland, woodlots and forests, to agricultural land could increase agricultural production and help meet rising global food demand. Yet, the extent to which such habitat loss would impact biodiversity and wild species is unknown. Here we survey species richness for fo...
Based on the analysis of both historical and recent collections, this paper reports an annotated list of taxa which are new to the lichen biota of Italy or of its administrative regions. Specimens were identified using a dissecting and a compound microscope; routine chemical spot tests and standardized thin-layer chromatography (TLC or HPTLC). The...
Aims: Habitat richness, i.e. 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. To test which fa...
Recent molecular studies on Parmelia revealed several new semi-cryptic and cryptic species, suggesting the existence of considerable genetic diversity within this genus that may not yet be expressed at the phenotypic level. This is the case of the two species Parmelia ernstiae and P. serrana that have been described in the P. saxatilis group from E...
Mountains provide a timely opportunity to examine the potential effects of climate change on biodiversity. However, nature conservation in mountain areas have mostly focused on the observed part of biodiversity, not revealing the suitable but absent species—dark diversity. Dark diversity allows calculating the community completeness, indicating whe...
Harmonization of timber production and forest conservation is a major challenge of modern silviculture. For the establishment of ecologically sustainable forest management, the management-related environmental drivers of multi-taxon biodiversity should be explored. Our study reveals those environmental variables related to tree species diversity an...
The study of the reproductive biology of lichen fungal symbionts has been traditionally challenging due to their complex lifestyles. Against the common belief of haploidy, a recent genomic study found a triploid-like signal in Letharia. Here, we infer the genome organization and reproduction in Letharia by analyzing genomic data from a pure culture...
In this contribution, new data concerning bryophytes, fungi, and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the bryophyte genera Aneura , Aulacomnium , Dumortiera , Fossombronia , Hennediella , Hygrohypnella , Pohlia , Porella , Riccardia , Tortella , and Tortula , the fungal genera Cortinarius , Mycen...
Community ecology has experienced a major transition, from a focus on patterns in taxonomic composition, to revealing the processes underlying community assembly through the analysis of species functional traits. The power of the functional trait approach is its generality, predictive capacity such as with respect to environmental change, and, thro...
The botanical exploration of the Majella National Park has a long tradition dating back to the eighteenth century. However, the lichen biota of this area is still poorly investigated. To provide a baseline for future investigations, in this annotated checklist, we summarised all available information on the occurrence of lichens in the Majella Nati...
Video presentation here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsYKuIjQoc
Abstract
Lichens are poikilohydric organisms resulting from the symbiosis between a fungus and a population of green algae and/or cyanobacteria. Their vital functions strictly depend both on exchanges with the atmosphere and on the chemical and physical characteristics of their s...
We explored the influence of climatic factors on diversity patterns of multiple taxa (lichens, bryophytes, and vascular plants) along a steep elevational gradient to predict communities’ dynamics under future climate change scenarios in Mediterranean regions. We analysed (1) species richness patterns in terms of heat-adapted, intermediate, and cold...
Terricolous lichen communities in lowlands occur especially in open dry habitats. Such communities are often dominated by species of the genus Cladonia, which are very variable in morphology, reproduction strategies, and secondary metabolites. In this work, we investigated traits-environment relationships considering vegetation dynamics, substrate...
I rilievi di biodiversità lichenica sono condotti nei sei siti forestali della Rete CONECOFOR inclusi nella Rete NEC Italia all'interno di un accordo UNICAM-CUFA /2019. Il protocollo operativo di campo è riferito al ICP Forests' ‘Field Manual part VII.2’ (Stofer et al. 2016).
In questa fase del lavoro, per ciascun sito, sono stati presi in consider...