Margarita Arianoutsou

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• PhD
• Professor (Full) at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Wildfires in Europe are becoming more frequent and intense, even impacting regions that are historically less affected. This report, prepared by a working group of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC), examines the drivers behind these changes, explores the consequences, and reviews current wildfire management practices. It advo...

(1) Background: The present study examines the effects of fire on the ecosystem services of forest ecosystems in Greece. Being a Mediterranean country, Greece has been affected by fires of increasing intensity and frequency in recent years; (2) Methods: Information was extracted from 56 articles published in the period January 1997–March 2024 that...

New introductions of alien Ipomoea species and their negative impacts have increased in Greece, Türkiye, and Iran. However, little is known about their current status, distribution, impacts, and management. Here, we provide a detailed overview of Ipomoea species in these countries and discuss the current and proposed management options for restorin...

(1) Background: Forest fires are widespread in Mediterranean-climate regions and are becoming very common in urban and peri-urban areas. (2) Methods: Wildfires in Attica since 1977 are mapped and types of vegetation burned are reported. (3) Results: Fires are becoming larger. During the period of study (1977–2024), 45% of the burned area was covere...

High oro-Mediterranean pine forests represent biodiversity hotspots, characterized by a unique convergence of environmental conditions, harbour distinct and specialized plant communities, with Pinus heldreichii (Bosnian pine) representing the dominant tree species. In Greece, P. heldreichii plays a critical role in ecosystem function within these h...

The Pinus halepensis (Aleppo pine) forests prevailing in the western part of the Mediterranean Basin are amongst the most severely affected by fire due to their inherent flammability. Our understanding of the environmental factors driving post-fire community dynamics is currently limited by the lack of time-series data at temporal scales. In this p...

The current paper presents the first effort to organize a comprehensive review of the Invasive Alien Species (IAS) of Greece. For this purpose, a database was developed with fields of information on the taxonomy, origin, ecology and pathways of introduction of terrestrial, freshwater and marine species. Our database includes a) taxa in the Union’s...

Alien insects represent one of the most species rich groups of organisms introduced to Europe, with some responsible for adverse social-economic, human-health, biodiversity and ecosystem impacts. The impacts of invasive alien species, especially on island ecosystems, have been a hot topic of research worldwide. Cy-prus is a Mediterranean island at...

The Chinese banyan (Ficus microcarpa) is an Australasian fig tree commonly planted in urban and semi-urban sites throughout the warmer parts of the world. Assisted by its host-specific mutualist pollinator Eupristina verticillata (Agaonidae), F. microcarpa often manages to colonise urban areas outside its native range and can invade natural habitat...

During August 2021, a wildfire outbreak in Evia, Greece’s second largest island, resulted in a major environmental and economic crisis. Apart from biodiversity and habitat loss, the disaster triggered a financial crisis because it wiped out wood-productive forests and outdoor areas that attract visitors. This crisis highlighted the need for a new g...

Cork oak (Quercus suber) as a West Mediterranean species is known for its ecological, economic and social values. Wildfires are one of the most serious problems threatening Quercus suber, endangering its occurrence in its area of distribution. Therefore, knowing the behavior of the species after fire and the factors influencing its responses are pa...

A five-month survey on Eucalyptus spp., one of the most commonly planted trees in Cyprus, was undertaken in Limassol and Akrotiri in urban, rural and protected habitats. Two alien gall-inducing Eucalyptus wasps: Leptocybe invasa Fisher and La Salle, 2004 and Ophelimus maskelli (Ashmead, 1900) (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) were recorded for the first ti...

Key message Long Bosnian pine chronologies from different mountains are shaped by different climatic parameters and can help identify past drought events and reconstruct landscape histories. Abstract We developed a 735-year-long Pinus heldreichii chronology from the southern distribution limit of the species, expanding the available database of lo...

Invasive alien plant species represent an important threat to various protected areas of the world, and this threat expected to be further enhanced due to climate change. This is also the case for the most important network of protected areas in Europe, the Natura 2000 network. In the current study we evaluated the distribution pattern of alien pla...

Pine and mixed forests are emblematic of the Mediterranean region, extending from the thermo- to mountainous Mediterranean bioclimatic zone. Here, we attempt a brief review of species richness, spatiotemporal diversity and surface activity of soil invertebrate communities in various Mediterranean pure pine forests and mixed forests. In addition, we...

Pines are a major component of forests and other wooded lands in the Mediterranean region. Pine woodlands have increased during recent decades due to abandonment and afforestation. Fires are widespread throughout the region. Understanding the historical (Holocene) interactions between pines and fires is important for anticipating how ongoing climat...

Pine forests represent a significant proportion of the vegetation of the Mediterranean Basin. Their abundance is explained in part by the importance they always have had for humans and the wide range of ecosystem services they provide. Pine forests and plantations are responsible for important provisioning services such as timber and firewood, but...

Focusing on pines, this chapter describes the main fire-related traits that contribute to plant fitness in response to fire. First we describe the most relevant fire-adaptive traits, and discuss their evolutionary history and syndromes. Next we compare the fire-adaptive traits of Mediterranean pine species in relation to their native habitats.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) pathways classification framework used in the implementation of the European Union’s (EU) Regulation 1143/2014 on invasive alien species (IAS Regulation) has recently been adopted by the European Alien Species Information Network (EASIN), the official information system supporting the implementation of t...

Invasive alien species (IAS) are known to be a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystem function and there is increasing evidence of their impacts on human health and economies globally. We undertook horizon scanning using expert-elicitation to predict arrivals of IAS that could have adverse human health or economic impacts on the island of Cypru...

Plant structural and biochemical traits are frequently used to characterise the life history of plants. Although some common patterns of trait covariation have been identified, recent studies suggest these patterns of covariation may differ with growing location and/or plant functional type (PFT). Mediterranean forest tree/shrub species are often d...

Fire affects and is affected by leaf functional traits indicative of resource allocation trade-offs. Global change drivers constrain both the resource-use strategies and flammability of coexisting species. However, small attention has been given in identifying links among flammability and plant economics. Ambiguity comes from the fact that flammabi...

Η λεκάνη απορροής του ρ. Πίκας βρίσκεται στη Δυτική Αττική και αποστραγγίζει τα νότια πρανή των Γερανείων, εκβάλοντας στην πεδινή έκταση που αναπτύσσεται ο οικισμός της Κινέτας. Το ρ. Πίκας διοχετεύεται προς τη θάλασσα σε διεύθυνση (ΝΝΑ) κάθετη ή περίπου κάθετη με την κύρια διεύθυνση στην οποία αναπτύσσονται οι ανθρώπινες υποδομές και ο οικισμός. Η...

The identification of research questions with high relevance for biodiversity conservation is an important step towards designing more effective policies and management actions, and to better allocate funding among alternative conservation options. However, the identification of priority questions may be influenced by regional differences in biodiv...

Fires affecting large areas usually create a mosaic of recovering plant communities reflecting their pre-fire composition and local conditions of burning. However, post-fire recovery patterns may also reveal the effects of landscape heterogeneity on the natural regeneration process of plant communities. This study combines field data and remote sen...

Invasive alien species (IAS) are one of the major drivers of change that can negatively affect biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services and human health; islands are particularly vulnerable to biological invasions. Horizon scanning can lead to prioritisation of IAS to inform decision-making and action; its scale and scope can vary depending o...

Vascular plants have been found to align along globally-recognised resource-allocation trade-offs among specific functional traits. Genetic constrains and environmental pressures limit the spectrum of viable resource-use strategies employed by plant species. While conspecific plants have often been described as identical, intraspecific variation fa...

Mountain coniferous forests of Southern Europe seem to be increasingly affected by large fires. Endemic Greek fir (Abies cephalonica) forests were among the most affected ecosystems by the 2007 extreme wildfires in Greece. The aim of this study is to investigate the pattern of post-fire regeneration of fir forest plant communities of Mount Parnitha...

Significance Our ability to predict the identity of future invasive alien species is largely based upon knowledge of prior invasion history. Emerging alien species—those never before encountered as aliens—therefore pose a significant challenge to biosecurity interventions worldwide. Using a global database of the first regional records of alien spe...

This paper aims to determine the main factors that shape the spatial patterns of alien plant species occurrence across Natura 2000 Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) in Greece, and quantify their influence. A series of spatial analysis techniques for the development of a spatial database of the factors involved, followed by a boosted negative bin...

In this study we analysed a novel tree-growth dataset, inferred from annual ring-width measurements, of 7 forest tree species from 12 mountain regions in Greece, in order to identify tree growth – climate relationships. The tree species of interest were: Abies cephalonica, Abies borisii-regis, Picea abies, Pinus nigra, Pinus sylvestris, Fagus sylva...

Το βιβλίο παρουσιάζει τις βασικές αρχές της επιστήμης της βιολογίας της διατήρησης, καλύπτοντας με συνοπτικό τρόπο, το σύνολο των ζητημάτων που αφορούν τη διατήρηση της βιοποικιλότητας, από τις στρατηγικές διατήρησης ειδών και εγκαθίδρυσης προστατευόμενων περιοχών, έως τα ζητήματα της αειφόρου ανάπτυξης και της αποτελεσματικότητας της χρηματοδότηση...

Ring-necked parakeet (Psittacula krameri), a species native to sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, has been ranked as one of the most successful invasive birds, with established populations in 10 European countries, including Greece. During the breeding season Ring-necked parakeets are dispersed in pairs but in winter time they roost communally. Quite a l...

The Mediterranean Basin is expected to face warmer and drier conditions in the future, following projected increases in temperature and declines in precipitation. The aim of this study is to explore how forests dominated by Abies borisii-regis, Abies cephalonica, Fagus sylvatica, Pinus nigra and Quercus frainetto will respond under such conditions....

Although research on human-mediated exchanges of species has substantially intensified during the last centuries, we know surprisingly little about temporal dynamics of alien species accumulations across regions and taxa. Using a novel database of 45,813 first records of 16,926 established alien species, we show that the annual rate of first record...

Supplementary Figures 1-12, Supplementary Tables 1-2, Supplementary Note 1 and Supplementary References

Fires of 2007 have consumed large areas of Black pine and endemic fir forests in Greece. The current research aims at examining the role of geomorphology and lithology that govern the soil properties upon the post-fire vegetation recovery at the landscape level. A case study from Taygetos Mt, a large part of which was burned in 2007, is presented....

Recent global changes seem to have affected fire regimes by inducing more severe larger fires in the thermomediterranean vegetation zone but also more frequent incidents in territories of higher altitudes. Cephalonia island hosts Mt Ainos, one of the most important National Parks of Greece, focal geographical area of the non-fire adapted endemic fi...

Mediterranean shrublands are generally water-limited and fire-driven ecosystems. Seed-based post-fire regeneration may be affected by varying rainfall patterns, depending on species' sensitivity to germinate under water stress. In our study, we considered the germination response to water stress in four species from multiple sites across the Medite...

Ruppell’s Warbler (Sylvia rueppelli) is an endemic species of the East Mediterranean, and a summer visitor in Greece. The knowledge concerning the ecology of the species are mostly based on qualitative observations rather than quantitative data. In order to study the characteristics of its territory, the behavior of a ringed male Ruppell’s warbler...

Understanding how future climate periods influence fire behaviour is important for organizing fire suppression strategy and management . The meteorological factors are the most critical parameters affecting fire behaviour in natural landscapes; hence, predicting climate change effects on fire behaviour could be an option for optimizing firefighting...

The European Alien Species Information Network (EASIN) aims to facilitate the exploration of alien species information in Europe, and is recognized as the information system supporting European Union Member States in the implementation of the recently published Invasive Alien Species Regulation. In this paper, we present the role and activities of...

The use of spatially explicit fire spread models to assess fire propagation and behaviour has several applications for fire management and research. We used the FARSITE simulator to predict the spread of a set of wildfires that occurred along an east–west gradient of the Euro-Mediterranean countries. The main purpose of this work was to evaluate th...

This study is focused on the development, implementation and evaluation of an environmental education programme for secondary education students. The programme was entitled ‘Τhe effects of fire on the soil system’ and it was implemented during the school period of 2008. Twenty-four (24) students (aged from 15 to 20) coming from Lidoriki Secondary S...

The European Alien Species Information Network (EASIN) was launched in 2012 by the European Commission to facilitate the exploration of existing alien species information and to assist the implementation of European policies on biological invasions. At the core of EASIN, there is an inventory of all known alien and cryptogenic species in Europe (th...

The purpose of this study was to assess spatial wildfire risk in a typical Mediterranean wildland-urban interface (WUI) in Greece and the potential effect of three different burning condition scenarios on the following four major wildfire risk components: burn probability, conditional flame length, fire size, and source-sink ratio. We applied the M...

ELNAIS is a dynamic online information platform aiming to collect and report spatial information on Aquatic Alien Species in Greek waters. It covers freshwater, marine and estuarine waters, including not only established aliens but also casual records and cryptogenic species. The ELNAIS system includes: News, List of Greek experts, Literature of fi...

of existing alien species information and to assist the implementation of European policies on biological invasions. At the core of EASIN, there is an inventory of all known alien and cryptogenic species in Europe (the EASIN Catalogue, herein published), which includes relevant information, such as taxonomic classification, pathways of introduction...

Protected areas hold an exceptional level of biodiversity and are very prone to anthropogenic environmental changes. Most studies have found that protected areas contain fewer invasive species than their surroundings, although reverse trends are frequently reported. The present study aimed to identify and rank non-native plant species that are alre...

AimAlthough all five of the major mediterranean-climate ecosystems (MCEs) of the world are recognized as loci of high plant species diversity and endemism, they show considerable variation in regional-scale richness. Here, we assess the role of stable Pleistocene climate and Cenozoic topography in explaining variation in regional richness of the gl...

ABSTRACT The present study forms part of the long-lasting observations of the post-fire regeneration of Abies cephalonica in the National Park of Parnitha after a highly severity fire, which occurred in June 2007 and burned 2/3 of the total fir forest. The aim of the work is to investigate the post-fire regeneration patterns of Abies cephalonica an...

Mountains of the northern Mediterranean basin face two major threats under global change. Aridity and available fuel are both expected to increase because of climatic and land-use changes, increasing fire danger. There may already be signs of such effects in the case of the Pinus nigra and Abies cephalonica forests on Mt. Taygetos (southern Greece)...

Protected areas are designed to conserve natural landscapes, to protect biodiversity and key ecosystem processes, to provide ecosystem goods and services, and occasionally to contribute significant economic benefits. Most studies have found that PAs contain fewer invasive species than their surrounds. However, new forms of land use are added, and a...

Warmer and drier conditions under climatic change are expected to increase the pressure from wildfires in the Mediterranean. At low altitudes deep-rooted plants (phreatophytes) survive the Mediterranean dry season by utilizing rainfall accumulating belowground from past rainfall events. This adaptation potentially influences their moisture content...

The relationships between weather/climate conditions and fire through the analysis of historical meteorological data and fire records were investigated using different algorithms and methodologies at several scales, from the Euro-Mediterranean level, through national, NUT02, and local scale. In spite of the use of such a wide range of methodologies...

The objective of this work was to compare and contrast the patterns of alien plant invasions in the world's five mediterranean-climate regions (MCRs). We expected landscape age and disturbance history to have bearing on levels of invasion. We assembled a database on naturalized alien plant taxa occurring in natural and semi-natural terrestrial habi...

Fire is a frequent and severe disturbance that affects plants on large scales, especially in Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MTE). Plants have evolved traits that confer resilience to fire and other disturbances, ensuring their persistence in fire-prone systems, but MTE floras differ in fire-related traits and their frequencies. Using available lite...

Invasive species often have ecological and economic impacts. They can threaten biological diversity in various ways, from reducing genetic variation and eroding gene pools, through the extinction of endemic species, to altering habitat and ecosystem functioning. Biological invasions also have economic impact. Vascular plants are among the most ubiq...

Historical fire records and meteorological observations, spanning more than 1 century (1894–2010), were gathered and assembled in a database, to provide long-term fire–weather associations. We investigated the relationships between forest fire activity and meteorological parameters and sought to find temporal patterns and trends in these historical...

Investigating children's beliefs and values toward threatened biodiversity can contribute to their understanding about nature and to the prevention of sociopolitical issues that may emerge when nature policy is being implemented. This study investigates children's beliefs about threats to plants, the personal values associated with conservation, an...