Molecular markers dataset to assess the genetic diversity of oriental plane trees from historical sites in Lazio (central Italy).

The dataset presented in this article is related to the research paper titled "Dimensional and genetic characterization of the last oriental plane trees (Platanus orientalis L.) of historical sites in Lazio (central Italy)" (Ciaffi et al., 2022). Indeed, the molecular analyses reported in that article consisted in a comparison of Italian veteran plane trees with 12 certified accessions of P. orientalis, P. occidentalis and their hybrids P. acerifolia (4 individuals per species). First, LEAFY gene analyses allowed identifying 32 P. orientalis and two P. acerifolia in four sites of the province of Rome, confirming also that the two representative trees from the two gardens of the province of Viterbo belong to P. orientalis. Second, the use of Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) and Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) molecular markers provided useful information regarding the genetic relationships within and among all the historical sites. Owing to the use of SSR and ISSR molecular markers, a dataset of parameters related to the genetic diversity of the same plant material was obtained and presented in this article. For SSR markers, seven loci previously developed for P. occidentalis (Lang, 2010) and two specifically developed for P. orientalis (Rinaldi et al., 2019) were employed. For ISSR markers, DNA samples were amplified with eight primers before used for the determination of genetic stability of micro-propagated plantlets of P. acerifolia (Huang et al., 2009) and for the genetic characterization of plane trees within the formal gardens of Villa Lante of Bagnaia and Palazzo Farnese (Viterbo, Italy) (Ciaffi et al., 2018). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the genetic diversity data for veteran oriental plane trees within heritage sites, which will offer helpful information for their management and conservation.

Can We Barter Local Taxes for Maintaining Our Green? A Psychological Perspective.

Previous research highlighted that the desire for neighborhood improvement is an antecedent of the citizens' involvement in green urban areas maintenance. Nevertheless, the topic of civic participation in the maintenance of green areas is not yet well developed in the literature and a link with local legislation is missing. We investigate the intention of participation in such maintenance through a web-based experiment. We hypothesize that stimuli of poor (vs. good) maintenance will be associated with a higher intention of contributing to the upkeep of green areas following the administrative barter law. The administrative barter is a law approved in Italy, which gives citizens the possibility of a reduction of local taxes in exchange for their involvement in the improvement of the territory. One hundred ninety-six participants (M age = 33.81) were assigned randomly to good maintenance condition (n = 100) or poor maintenance condition (n = 96). The level of maintenance was manipulated through photographs of a neighborhood depicting good or poor maintenance of the urban green ornamentation. Results pointed out that people showed a greater willingness to engage in the improvement of green urban areas in the poor condition as compared to the good condition, according to the administrative barter law. This study suggests that local legislation may provide an incentive fostering citizens' involvement in green urban areas maintenance.

Data set useful for the micropropagation and the assessment of post-vitro genetic fidelity of veteran trees of P. orientalis L.

The data presented in this article are related to the research article titled "Conservation of veteran trees within historical gardens (COVE): a case study applied to Platanus orientalis L. in central Italy" (Ciaffi et al., 2018) [1]. This article reports data on the composition of the substrates used in the different steps of Platanus orientalis micropropagation: establishment of in vitro culture, multiplication, elongation and rooting. Moreover, molecular data were used to assess the genetic fidelity of the micropropagated plants respect mother plants after three year of in vitro cultivation. Fifteen ISSR markers, used in "Determination of genetic stability of long-term micropropagated plantlets of Platanus acerifolia using ISSR markers" (Huang et al., 2009) [2] on P. acerifolia and in "Variant identification in Platanus occidentalis L. using SNP and ISSR markers" (Lee et al., 2012) [3] on P. occidentalis, were successfully employed in the present study on P. orientalis. The plant material was collected from the Renaissance garden of Villa Lante in Viterbo, Italy. It is envisioned that these data set will provide useful information for the conservation of veteran oriental plane trees of historical gardens.

A Different Way to Stay in Touch with 'Urban Nature': The Perceived Restorative Qualities of Botanical Gardens.

Botanical gardens represent interesting arenas for research in environmental psychology and environment-behavior relations. They can be considered a very particular type of restorative environment and also have a relevant social function for the promotion of a more sustainable lifestyle in current societies. In this paper, we present a study assessing the relationship between the perceived restorativeness, the psychological and physical benefits experienced, and the subjective well-being reported by visitors of botanical gardens in four different cities in Italy (N = 127). As expected, a bootstrapping mediation model supported the idea that perceived restorativeness of botanical gardens significantly predicts visitors' subjective well-being, both directly and indirectly through perceived physical and psychological benefits of the visit. A moderation model also revealed that the relationship between restorativeness and well-being varies across respondents with different socio-demographic characteristics, being stronger for singles as compared to couples with and without children, respectively. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Extending large-scale forest inventories to assess urban forests.

Urban areas are continuously expanding today, extending their influence on an increasingly large proportion of woods and trees located in or nearby urban and urbanizing areas, the so-called urban forests. Although these forests have the potential for significantly improving the quality the urban environment and the well-being of the urban population, data to quantify the extent and characteristics of urban forests are still lacking or fragmentary on a large scale. In this regard, an expansion of the domain of multipurpose forest inventories like National Forest Inventories (NFIs) towards urban forests would be required. To this end, it would be convenient to exploit the same sampling scheme applied in NFIs to assess the basic features of urban forests. This paper considers approximately unbiased estimators of abundance and coverage of urban forests, together with estimators of the corresponding variances, which can be achieved from the first phase of most large-scale forest inventories. A simulation study is carried out in order to check the performance of the considered estimators under various situations involving the spatial distribution of the urban forests over the study area. An application is worked out on the data from the Italian NFI.