Riccardo Guarino

Riccardo Guarino
University of Palermo | UNIPA · Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche Chimiche e Farmaceutiche

BSc,MD,PhD

About

401
Publications
164,845
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Introduction
I am a botanist. He who loves plants can see how gross it is to hoard without limits; how illusory it is to claim pre-emption over what, in reality, belongs to everyone; how vain it is to spend time just to satisfy needless needs, believing that this is the right way to escape from a status that looks like "poverty" to our blinded eyes. He who really loves plants realizes that we are getting poorer and poorer while we continue this vast and violent exploitation of our planet.
Additional affiliations
January 2008 - present
University of Palermo
January 2002 - January 2006
University of Cagliari
January 1996 - September 2008
University of Catania

Publications

Publications (401)
Article
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In Italy, the first law that puts landscape and historical buildings under public control was implemented in 1922. While this represents a significant achievement for those times, for that law landscape essentially has an historical and aesthetic connotation, without any explicit reference to the components of flora, fauna and geology. Today, many...
Chapter
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Spatial planning and environmental restoration are essential corollaries to the management of protected natural areas; however, without a sound awareness of the evolutionary consistency of biocoenoses, the harmonious integration between human activities and ecosystem preservation remains an unattainable utopia. The theorisation of a balanced welfar...
Article
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Over the past 20 years, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have raised enormous expectations, passionate political controversies and an ongoing debate on how these technologies should be assessed. Current risk assessment procedures generally assess GMOs in terms of their potential risk of negatively affecting human health and the environment. Ca...
Article
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The first mention on conceptualisation of what we now term “biodiversity” was given by Federico Cesi about 400years ago. By the light of the first formulation of this concept, the historical changes in the human approach to “biodiversity” are discussed. The popularity of this term shifted from scientific to socio-political contexts and its signific...
Chapter
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Questo contributo mira non solo a denunciare l'estre-mo degrado di buona parte degli ecosistemi dunali della Si-cilia, ma anche a suggerire strategie efficaci per una corretta salvaguardia e gestione sostenibile di ciò che ne rimane. Il paesaggio dei litorali sabbiosi è il frutto del complesso e delicato equilibrio dinamico fra i processi di erosio...
Article
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We compiled a list of the known maxima of vascular plant species richness in the steppe zone of Ukraine at different sampling scales (0.0001-100 m²) and compared them with the world records. Detailed information on each of the identified species-rich grassland plots is provided, including site descriptions, plot characteristics, coordinates, and sp...
Article
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This study deals with the phytosociological classification of the grassland plant communities of the Madonie Mountains (Sicily, Italy). We combined data from 185 vegetation plots obtained from scientific literature, with 42 plots sampled, in summit areas above 1900 m a.s.l. Only vascular plants were recorded, and soil samples were collected to anal...
Article
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The Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) has developed a rigorous sampling methodology aimed at comprehensively documenting plant diversity across non-forest habitats in the Palaearctic realm. During the 18 th EDGG Field Workshop devoted to the dry grasslands in the Southwestern Alps, three annual vascular plant species not observed in the Aosta Val...
Article
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This article describes FloraVeg.EU, a new online database with open‐access information on European vegetation units (phytosociological syntaxa), vegetated habitats, and plant taxa. It consists of three modules. (1) The Vegetation module includes 149 phytosociological classes, 378 orders and 1305 alliances of an updated version of the EuroVegCheckli...
Article
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In recent times, the misleading belief that the indiscriminate planting of a million trees is the panacea to some of the most serious and urgent environmental problems of our planet (such as soil erosion, climate change, etc.) has gained increasing popularity. However, the idea of "reforesting the planet" does not seem to adequately consider the fa...
Article
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The authors discovered a new population of Hieracium lucidum Guss., a species hitherto considered strictly endemic to Monte Gallo. Useful elements for the ecological characterisation of the new population are provided. The stretch of carbonate coastline between the Egadi Islands and the western portion of the Province of Palermo displays a very hig...
Article
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The severity and the extent of a large fire event that occurred on the small volcanic island of Stromboli (Aeolian archipelago, Italy) on 25–26 May 2022 were evaluated through remotely sensed data to assess the short-term effect of fire on local plant communities. For this purpose, the differenced normalized burned index (dNBR) was also used to qua...
Article
Critical and updated alien species inventories are crucial to properly manage and contrast biological invasions. After six years, a second update to the inventory of the vascular flora alien to Italy is presented. It provides details on the occurrence at administrative regional level and, for the first time, floristic data for San Marino. The check...
Article
Critical species inventories provide primary biodiversity data crucial for biogeographical, ecological, and conservation studies. After six years, a second update to the inventory of the vascular flora native to Italy is presented. It provides details on the occurrence at regional level and, for the first time, floristic data for San Marino. The ch...
Article
Motivation The intrinsic characteristics of islands make them a unique study system for the investigation of ecological and evolutionary dynamics. The Mediterranean Basin, an island‐rich biodiversity hotspot, still lacks a comprehensive spatial database for these geographic features. This study presents the first comprehensive spatial database of a...
Article
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The first comprehensive phytosociological classification of all vegetation types in Europe (EuroVegChecklist; Applied Vegetation Science, 2016, 19, 3-264) contained brief descriptions of each type. However, these descriptions were not standardized and mentioned only the most distinct features of each vegetation type. The practical application of th...
Article
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Small islands represent a common feature in the Mediterranean and host a significant fraction of its biodiversity. However, the distribution of plant species richness across spatial scales-from local communities (alpha) to whole islands (gamma)-is largely unknown, and so is the influence of environmental, geographical, and topographical factors. By...
Technical Report
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Dear members of the GrassPlot Consortium, With this second Newsletter of this year, we would like to update you on recent developments of our database. Not overly much has happened in the past half of a year, which was a busy field season for all of us like probably most of you. However, stay tuned for many upcoming exciting new paper projects, whi...
Article
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An unusual population of Alternanthera was discovered in the South-Eastern part of Sicily. In this paper, we analyze the morphological features of the collected specimens and the ecological features of the community in which they were found. Also, we discuss the taxonomic criticality of the genus and assess the risk that the new finding may become...
Article
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The results of the annual excursion of the Working Group for Vegetation Science of the Italian Botanical Society, held in the Egadi Islands, Mount San Giuliano and Mount Cofano (W Sicily) on April 23–27 2022, are presented. This paper includes: (1) general information on the visited sites; (2) geology and geomorphology; (3) climatology and bioclima...
Article
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New Italian data on the distribution of the Annex I Habitats are reported in this contribution. Specifically, 8 new occurrences in Natura 2000 sites are presented and 49 new cells are added in the EEA 10 km × 10 km reference grid. The new data refer to the Italian administrative regions of Campania, Calabria, Marche, Piedmont, Sardinia, Sicily, Tus...
Article
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Question Cushion‐forming vascular plants are adapted to alpine environments and act as ecosystem engineers by moderating microclimate and creating a fertility island under their canopy. Most of the available studies on cushion ecology have been devoted to plant facilitation, but none used a holistic approach that considers the response of co‐existi...
Article
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In this paper, based on fieldwork and herbaria surveys, new data concerning the presence of 32 native and alien vascular species for Sicily (Italy) are provided. Among the native species, the occurrence of the following taxa is reported for the first time or confirmed after many decades of non-observation: Aira multiculmis, Arum maculatum, Carex fl...
Preprint
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Volcanic islands are special ecosystems for studying biogeographical and evolutionary processes. Occasional disturbance events, such as eruptions, tsunami or big fires, can represent major drivers of such processes leading to biotic sterilisation or major changes in island biotas. In this study, through remotely sensed data, we investigated the int...
Article
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This paper presents two sampling-event datasets with occurrences of vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens collected in May-June 2021 in southern Ukraine. We aimed to collect high-quality biodiversity data in an understudied region and contribute it to international databases and networks. The study was carried out during the 15th Eurasian Dry Gra...
Preprint
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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...
Article
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Aim Assessing the performances of different sampling approaches for documenting community diversity may help to identify optimal sampling efforts and strategies, and to enhance conservation and monitoring planning. Here, we used two data sets based on probabilistic and preferential sampling schemes of Italian forest vegetation to analyze the multif...
Article
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Aims: To develop a consistent ecological indicator value system for Europe for five of the main plant niche dimensions: soil moisture (M), soil nitrogen (N), soil reaction (R), light (L) and temperature (T). Study area: Europe (and closely adjacent regions). Methods: We identified 31 indicator value systems for vascular plants in Europe that contai...
Article
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Aims Ellenberg-type indicator values are expert-based rankings of plant species according to their ecological optima on main environmental gradients. Here we extend the indicator-value system proposed by Heinz Ellenberg and co-authors for Central Europe by incorporating other systems of Ellenberg-type indicator values (i.e., those using scales comp...
Conference Paper
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Current scientific research points out the low number of papers focused on the environmental patterns in Mediterranean urban areas, where green infrastructure is still strongly underrated by scientists as well as by politicians, planners and decision-makers. In this paper, the results of a simple meta-analysis on the topics treated in scientific li...
Article
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Extremely narrow endemic plant species (ENEs) are generally connected with microrefugia characterized by particular environmental conditions. In-depth knowledge of the ecological requirements of ENEs is fundamental to plan appropriate conservation measures. Using cross-cutting technology, this paper gives a multifaceted approach to collect on-site...
Article
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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...
Article
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Ptilostemon greuteri is one of the most endangered and poorly studied woody vascular plant species of the Mediterranean Basin, endemic to Sicily (Italy). Several peculiar traits confer to P. greuteri a character of uniqueness and an enigmatic attractiveness. In fact, at first glimpse the largest individuals of this species remind the most remarkabl...
Article
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The inneralpine dry valleys of the Swiss Alps are characterized by subcontinental climate, leading to many peculiarities in dry grassland species composition. Despite their well-known uniqueness, comprehensive studies on biodiversity patterns of the dry grasslands in these valleys were still missing. To close this gap, we sampled 161 10-m² vegetati...
Article
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Microbiotas are the range of microorganisms (mainly bacteria and fungi) colonizing multicellular, macroscopic organisms. They are crucial for several metabolic functions affecting the health of the host. However, difficulties hamper the investigation of microbiota composition in cultivating microorganisms in standard growth media. For this reason,...
Article
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Aim: Understanding the variation in community composition and species abundances (i.e., β-diversity) is at the heart of community ecology. A common approach to examine β-diversity is to evaluate directional variation in community composition by measuring the decay in the similarity among pairs of communities along spatial or environmental distance...
Article
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The Aeolian Islands (Italy) are a volcanic archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea comprising seven main islands, among which are two active volcanoes. The peculiar geological features and the wide variety of environments and soils have an important impact on native plants, and in particular, the Aeolian populations of Dactylis glomerata (a perennial coo...
Article
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In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of native vascular flora in Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations, and exclusions to the Italian administrative regions. Nomenclatural and distribution updates, published elsewhere, and corrigenda are provided as Suppl. material 1.
Article
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Aim The first comprehensive checklist of European phytosociological alliances, orders and classes (EuroVegChecklist) was published by Mucina et al. (2016, Applied Vegetation Science , 19 (Suppl. 1), 3–264). However, this checklist did not contain detailed information on the distribution of individual vegetation types. Here we provide the first maps...
Article
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The 15th EDGG Field Workshop took place from 24 May to 3 June 2021 in Southern Ukraine (Kherson and Mykolaiv administrative regions). Over 10 days, we sampled different types of grasslands, mainly focusing on dry grasslands of the classes Festuco-Brometea, Koelerio-Corynephoretea canescentis, and Festuco-Puccinellietea (steppic, sandy and saline, r...
Article
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We propose an equation to evaluate the efficiency of a classification as a function of the effort required and the population size of data collectors. The formula postulates a “classification efficiency coefficient”, which relates not only to the complexity of the object to be classified, but also to the data availability and representativeness. Wh...
Article
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We report the first record of Torilis pseudonodosa Bianca (Apiaceae) from Ukraine. It was found on 28th of May 2021 in the “Potiivska” section of the Black Sea Biosphere Reserve near the village of Zaliznyi Port (Southern Ukraine). Torilis pseudonodosa previously was known from various countries in the Mediterranean Basin and Western Asia, but not...
Article
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In the summer of 2021, enormous wildfires in the Mediterranean eliminated huge areas of mainly coniferous forest, destroyed adjacent settlements and claimed the lives of many people. The fires indicate effects of climate change and expose consequences of rural demographic changes, deficits in regional and touristic development planning and shortcom...
Article
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Field investigation carried out by the Sicilian botanists in the last 20 years enabled them to identify eight habitat types of high biogeographic and conservation interest, neglected by the Directive 92/43, which deserve ad hoc conservation measures. For each of these habitats, a syntaxonomic interpretation of the corresponding plant communities, t...
Article
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Aims : To quantify how fine-grain (within-plot) beta diversity differs among biomes and vegetation types. Study area : Palaearctic biogeographic realm. Methods : We extracted 4,654 nested-plot series with at least four different grain sizes between 0.0001 m² and 1,024 m² from the GrassPlot database spanning broad geographic and ecological gradients...