Stefano Chelli

University of Camerino | UNICAM · Scuola di Bioscienze e Medicina veterinaria

The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial m...

The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large‐scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial m...

The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial m...

Biodiversity is changing rapidly, and ecologists use various measures to monitor and conserve it, but not all are equally effective. In the European temperate forests, ecologists are tasked with assessing the impact of global changes on plant species richness; however, this fails at capturing vital information about plant interactions. Using a chro...

Trait‐based ecology has already revealed main independent axes of trait variation defining trait spaces that summarize plant adaptive strategies, but often ignoring intraspecific trait variability (ITV). By using empirical ITV‐level data for two independent dimensions of leaf form and function and 167 species across five habitat types (coastal dune...

Plant trait variation is constrained by mechanical and energetic trade‐offs as attested by the global spectrum of plant form and function and the fine‐root economics space for above‐ and below‐ground traits. However, traits that are key for fitness maintenance in some plant groups, such as clonal and bud bank traits, have not yet been integrated wi...

The functional diversity of vascular plants is remarkable. Yet, previous studies showed that trait trade-offs constrain aboveground or fine-root trait variation. How do neglected functions such as resprouting and clonal growth, key for fitness maintenance in some plant groups, integrate in these trait frameworks? By using an extensive dataset (> 20...

As a large and persistent carbon sink, forest soils have an essential role in the carbon cycle, thus performing valuable services to society. This paper aims to investigate the role of several environmental factors in driving soil organic carbon (SOC) storage variability in forest soils. The Italian ICP-Forests (International Co-operative Programme...

Background and aims – Forests are among the most threatened ecosystems worldwide, and endemic plants are often a vulnerable component of the flora of a given territory. So far, however, understory forest endemics of southern Europe have received little attention and are poorly known for several aspects. Material and methods – We developed the first...

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...

Background and Aims Clonality is a key life history strategy promoting on-spot persistence, space occupancy, resprouting after disturbance and resource storage, sharing and foraging. These functions provided by clonality can be advantageous under different environmental conditions, including resource paucity and fire-proneness, which define most me...

Different European countries have interest in reviving the practice of coppice forest management. Despite in temperate forests the understory represents more than 80% of the plant diversity, it remains overlooked. The lack of knowledge is particularly evident for Italy, where coppice forests represent 42.3% of the forest cover and new demands for c...

Forests are among the most threatened ecosystems at the global scale, and endemic plants are often a vulnerable component of the flora of a given territory. So far, however, European forest endemic taxa have been scarcely investigated, especially those of the understory of the southern regions. Italy has a significant incidence of plant endemism an...

The understory represents a large 90% of biodiversity in temperate forests and is essential in litter decomposition and nutrient cycling. We analysed plant diversity using Shannon's diversity (H') and a special case of H' called compositional diversity (CD) and tested their relationship with different spatial scales, successional stages, and struct...

Understory plants contribute to >80% of the understory forest diversity and are susceptible to climatic changes. We analysed long-term monitoring and climate data to determine: (a) what are the patterns of functional diversity (FD) through time and across forests, (b) does climate explain these patterns, and (c) does above and belowground FD respon...

Temperate forest understory poorly contributes to forest biomass but may contain 90% of plant diversity and contributes significantly to ecosystem functions such promoting litter decomposition and nutrient cycling. Furthermore, the understory is extremely sensitive to disturbance, including forest management practices, which may alter resource amou...

The publication of the Decree that has established the Italian network of old-growth forests opens new opportunities for nature conservation and new challenges for scientists. A fundamental criterion for the identification of old-growth forests is related to a "characteristic biodiversity" due to the absence of disturbances for at least sixty years...

The diversity of species combinations observable in sampling units reflects a species' uneven distribution and preference for specific abiotic and biotic conditions – a phenomenon most commonly expressed in terms of ecological assembly rules of plant communities and other sessile organisms (e.g. subtidal algae, invertebrates and coral reefs). We pr...

Evolutionary history and environmental filtering shape the phylogenetic and functional structure of regional assemblages. However, detecting the footprint of such eco‐evolutionary drivers is challenging because these may often counter each other's signature. Here, we examined whether a biogeographic deconstruction approach of phylogenetic (PD) and...

Data from the comspat R package (see the linked manuscript; Tsakalos et al. 2022). The manuscript used three grid data sets (64 × 64 sampling units), including: one simulation (grid_patchy_associated) and two simulation derivatives (grid_random and grid_patchy_no_isc) produced by randomization. We used a spatially explicit individual-based simulat...

The diversity of species combinations observable in sampling units reflects a species' uneven distribution and preference for specific abiotic and biotic conditions – a phenomenon most commonly expressed in terms of ecological assembly rules of plant communities and other sessile organisms (e.g., subtidal algae, invertebrates and coral reefs). We p...

Climate change and human infrastructures heavily affect seashore dynamics with cascading consequences on coastal sand dunes. While there is a high number of studies conducted on plant communities, there is a lack of monitoring approaches conducted at population level. We studied the variations in spatial patterns of the population of three plant sp...

Diversity responses to climatic factors in plant communities are well understood from experiments, but less known in natural conditions due to the rarity of appropriate long-term observational data. In this paper, we use long-term transect data sampled annually in three natural grasslands of different species pools, soils, landscape contexts and la...

Coppice forest management impacts understorey vegetation. This is particularly true for habitat specialists (priority elements in conservation) who prefer closed canopy conditions associated with mature forests. Most trait-based studies of forest understorey focus on interspecific differences, which neglect the role of intraspecific variability. He...

With the aim to identify future challenges and opportunities in vegetation science, we brought together a group of 22 early-career vegetation scientists from diverse backgrounds to perform a horizon scan. In this contribution, we present a selection of 15 topics that were ranked by participants as the most emergent and impactful for vegetation scie...

A longstanding research divide exists in plant ecology: either focus on plant clonality with no ambition to address nonclonal plants, or focus on all plants, ignoring that many ecological processes can be affected by the fact that some plants are clonal while others are not. This gap cascades into a lack of distinction and knowledge about the simil...

Environmental circumstances shaping soil microbial communities have been studied extensively, but due to disparate study designs it has been difficult to resolve whether a globally consistent set of predictors exists, or context-dependency prevails. Here, we used a network of 18 grassland sites (11 sampled across regional plant productivity gradien...

Climate change models predict a strong reduction of average precipitation, especially of the summer rainfall, and an increase in intensity and frequency of drought events in the Mediterranean region. The research aim was to understand how four dominant grass species (Arrhenatherum elatius, Cynosurus cristatus, Elymus repens, and Lolium perenne) in...

Natural and anthropogenic disturbances are key factors in forest vegetation dynamics. Forest disturbance regimes are rapidly changing, with increasing magnitude and frequency of extreme events such as pathogen invasions , wildfires and windstorms, possibly as a consequence of climate change [1]. In October 2018, the "Vaia" storm hit the Eastern Ita...

Climate change and human infrastructures heavily affect seashore dynamics with cascading consequences on coastal sand dunes which are transitional ecosystems hosting threatened habitat and various ecosystem services. Therefore, dune restoration has been recurrently applied as a tool to minimize coastal risks and ensure the biodiversity conservation...

This book presents the abstracts of the 13th Clonal plant meeting hosted by the University of Camerino (1st – 3rd September 2021).

How species assemble in a community is still an unresolved question in ecology, especially in forest ecosystems. In temperate forests, the understory layer includes most of the plant diversity and significantly contributes to ecosystem functions. Understory communities are susceptible to changes in environmental conditions linked to forest structur...

Forest understory plants are sensitive to light availability, and different species' groups can respond differently to changing light conditions. A plant trait tightly linked to light capture is specific leaf area (SLA). Studies considering the relative role of within-and among-species SLA variation across different species groups (e.g., specialist...

This paper explores which traits are correlated with fine-scale (0.25 m 2) species persistence patterns in the herb layer of old-growth forests. Four old-growth beech forests representing different climatic contexts (presence or absence of summer drought period) were selected along a north-south gradient in Italy. Eight surveys were conducted in ea...

Small-scale landforms influence plant species richness, but their mechanisms and effects in semi-natural dry grasslands have been poorly investigated. In this study we compared vascular plant richness, species composition, plant traits, soil properties and biomass nutrient content of convex (hillocks) and concave (hollows) karst landforms in a moun...

Dominants are key species that shape ecosystem functioning. Plant dominance is typically assessed on aboveground features. However, belowground, individual species may not scale proportionally in relation to their aboveground dimension. This is especially important in ecosystems where most biomass is allocated belowground, including grassy and shru...

This study aims to increase floristic knowledge of Marche by means of a survey in the Montagna di Torricchio State Nature Reserve (central Italy). The Reserve, located in the central Apennines, covers about 3.2 km ² at altitudes ranging from 820 to 1,491 m a.s.l. It has been owned and managed as a strict reserve by the University of Camerino since...

Predicting how biodiversity affects ecosystem functioning requires a multifaceted approach based on the partitioning of diversity into its taxonomic and functional facets and thus redundancy. Here, we investigated how species richness (S), functional diversity (FD) and functional redundancy (FR) are affected by forest structure. Sixty-eight abandon...

Patterns of diversity across spatial scales in forest successions are being overlooked, despite their importance for developing sustainable management practices. Here, we tested the recently proposed U-shaped biodiversity model of forest succession. A chronosequence of 11 stands spanning from 5 to 400 years since the last disturbance was used. Unde...

Aim Plant species continue to be moved outside of their native range by human activities. Here, we aim to determine whether, once introduced, plants assimilate into native communities or whether they aggregate, thus forming mosaics of native‐ and alien‐rich communities. Alien species might aggregate in their non‐native range owing to shared habitat...

Plant traits—the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants—determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research sp...

Plant functional trait data aggregated at the community level (i.e., community weighted mean, CWM) are fundamental to study plant-environment relationships. Here, we provide a large database of CWM values of twelve traits reflecting several plant functions, including leaf, seed, whole-plant, clonal and bud bank traits. The CWMs were calculated in 2...

Mountain ecosystems are sensitive indicators of climate change. Long-term studies may be extremely useful in assessing the responses of high-elevation ecosystems to climate change and other anthropogenic drivers. Mountain research sites within the LTER (Long-Term Ecosystem Research) network are representative of various types of ecosystems and span...

Aim: To date, despite their great potential biogeographical regionalization models have been mostly developed on descriptive and empirical bases. This paper aims at applying the beta-diversity framework on a statistically representative data set to analytically test the consistency of the biogeographical regionalization of Italian forests. Locati...

We assessed the changes in community-weighted mean (CWM) and variability of specific leaf area (SLA) and leaf area (LA) of different Mediterranean shrub communities along an elevation gradient in the island of Sardinia (Italy). Furthermore, we explored the relative contribution of species turnover and intraspecific variation to shifts in CWM values...

QUESTION: In functional biogeography studies, generalizable patterns in the relationship between plant traits and the environment have yet to emerge. Local drivers (i.e., soil, land use, vegetation structure) can increase our understanding of trait‐environment relationship. What is the role of climate and local drivers in shaping abundance‐weighted...

The study of plant trait-environment links is rarely focused on traits that inform on space occupancy and resprouting (both affecting plant persistence), especially in forest understories. Traits that can effectively capture such key functions are associated with clonality and bud banks. We hypothesized that: 1) climate is the main driver of clonal...

Species pool conservation is critical for the stability of ecosystem processes. However, climate and land use changes will likely affect biodiversity, and managers of protected areas are under increasing pressure to monitor native species diversity changes by approaches that are scientifically sound and comparable over time. Here we describe a plan...

Forests represent the most diverse and complex ecosystems hosting high levels of terrestrial biodiversity, providing needful ecosystem services for human well-being. As an important global attack is pressing this crucial patrimony with an alarming rate, we need an efficient and operative tool to monitor both their conservation and dynamic status. I...

Plant communities are characterized by continuous fine-scale dynamics, and traitbased approaches can help us explore ecological mechanisms behind such dynamics. The issue of species persistence is of crucial importance to understand the complexity of vegetation dynamics in forest ecosystems and to predict future shifts in species composition and fu...

Aims We examined the importance of litter quality and microclimate on early-stage litter mass loss, analysed the importance of interactions among environmental factors in determining key decomposition parameters and compared the variation in decomposition rates in vegetation types and sites with similar climate. Methods Following the Tea-Bag Index...

We selected two grasslands characterized by contrasting features (north‐ and south‐facing slopes). In both sites, during two climatically different years, mid‐season (summer) precipitation was manipulated in order to obtain a gradient of rainfall availability, comprising additional rainfall, ambient rainfall conditions and rainfall reduction. The a...

Italy is among the European countries with the greatest plant diversity due to both a great environmental heterogeneity and a long history of man-environment interactions. Trait-based approaches to ecological studies have developed greatly over recent decades worldwide, although several issues concerning the relationships between plant functional t...

Mountain ecosystems are sensitive and reliable indicators of climate change. Long-term studies may be extremely useful in assessing the responses of high-elevation ecosystems to climate change and other anthropogenic drivers from a broad ecological perspective. Mountain research sites within the LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) network are repr...

Extreme weather events, land use, and the presence of invasive species can act as pressures threatening biodiversity, resilience and ecosystem services. Particularly in the open cultural landscape, these pressures can suddenly drive ecosystems across tipping points and beyond thresholds of system integrity. Yet, biodiversity holds features for buff...

Landscape means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors. Unfortunately, this definition hides different criticalities in relation to landscape analyses. In this perspective, landscape ecology should begin to consider ownership types, labour relations, and social pe...

Presentation about the update on the review process related to the status of the research on plant functional traits in Italy. See the paper Chelli et al. Plant-environment interactions through a functional traits perspective: a review of Italian studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/11263504.2018.1559250

The silvicultural management of coppicing has been very common in deciduous forests in many European countries. After decades of decline of this practice, socio-economic changes might induce a revival valuing the biomass as a resource. New insights in the ecological processes that regulate plant diversity are relevant for a sustainable forest manag...

Italy represents a good model region for assessing vegetation responses to changing climate across a broad climatic range, from Mediterranean warm-dry climate to alpine cold-humid climate. We reviewed results of studies analysing the response of natural vegetation to climate change in Italy, published until July 2016 in peer-reviewed journals. Evid...

Though the importance of coppicing for the conservation of forest biodiversity is acknowledged, little is known about flora diversity and how it may be affected by the perceptions, constraints and regulations governing how loggers choose to exploit forest resources. Building on previous research on coppiced forests in the central Italian Apennines,...

Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of experimental drought manipulation studies using rain-out shelters in five sites of natural grassland ecosystems of Europe. The single studies assess the effects of extreme drought on the intraspecific variation of the specific leaf area (SLA), a proxy of plant growth. We evaluate and compare the effect size of...