Plant functional traits are correlated with species persistence in the herb layer of old-growth beech forests.

This paper explores which traits are correlated with fine-scale (0.25 m2) 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 each of the sites during the period spanning 1999-2011. We found that fine-scale species persistence was correlated with different sets of plant functional traits, depending on local ecological context. Seed mass was found to be as important for the fine-scale species persistence in the northern sites, while clonal and bud-bank traits were markedly correlated with the southern sites characterised by summer drought. Leaf traits appeared to correlate with species persistence in the drier and wetter sites. However, we found that different attributes, i.e. helomorphic vs scleromorphic leaves, were correlated to species persistence in the northernmost and southernmost sites, respectively. These differences appear to be dependent on local trait adaptation rather than plant phylogenetic history. Our findings suggest that the persistent species in the old-growth forests might adopt an acquisitive resource-use strategy (i.e. helomorphic leaves with high SLA) with higher seed mass in sites without summer drought, while under water-stressed conditions persistent species have a conservative resource-use strategy (i.e. scleromorphic leaves with low SLA) with an increased importance of clonal and resprouting ability.

Exploring patterns of beta-diversity to test the consistency of biogeographical boundaries: A case study across forest plant communities of Italy.

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. LOCATION: Italy. TAXON: Vascular plants. METHODS: Forest plant communities were surveyed in 804 plots made in a statistically representative sample of forest communities made by 201 sites of Italian forests across the three biogeographical regions of the country: Alpine, Continental, and Mediterranean. We conducted an ordination analysis and an analysis of beta-diversity, decomposing it into its turnover and nestedness components. RESULTS: Our results provide only partial support to the consistency of the biogeographical regionalization of Italy. While the differences in forest plant communities support the distinction between the Alpine and the other two regions, differences between Continental and Mediterranean regions had lower statistical support. Pairwise beta-diversity and its turnover component are higher between- than within-biogeographical regions. This suggests that different regional species pools contribute to assembly of local communities and that spatial distance between-regions has a stronger effect than that within-regions. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Our findings confirm a biogeographical structure of the species pools that is captured by the biogeographical regionalization. However, nonsignificant differences between the Mediterranean and Continental biogeographical regions suggest that this biogeographical regionalization is not consistent for forest plant communities. Our results demonstrate that an analytical evaluation of species composition differences among regions using beta-diversity analysis is a promising approach for testing the consistency of biogeographical regionalization models. This approach is recommended to provide support to the biogeographical regionalization used in some environmental conservation polices adopted by EU.

Future hotspots of terrestrial mammal loss.

Current levels of endangerment and historical trends of species and habitats are the main criteria used to direct conservation efforts globally. Estimates of future declines, which might indicate different priorities than past declines, have been limited by the lack of appropriate data and models. Given that much of conservation is about anticipating and responding to future threats, our inability to look forward at a global scale has been a major constraint on effective action. Here, we assess the geography and extent of projected future changes in suitable habitat for terrestrial mammals within their present ranges. We used a global earth-system model, IMAGE, coupled with fine-scale habitat suitability models and parametrized according to four global scenarios of human development. We identified the most affected countries by 2050 for each scenario, assuming that no additional conservation actions other than those described in the scenarios take place. We found that, with some exceptions, most of the countries with the largest predicted losses of suitable habitat for mammals are in Africa and the Americas. African and North American countries were also predicted to host the most species with large proportional global declines. Most of the countries we identified as future hotspots of terrestrial mammal loss have little or no overlap with the present global conservation priorities, thus confirming the need for forward-looking analyses in conservation priority setting. The expected growth in human populations and consumption in hotspots of future mammal loss mean that local conservation actions such as protected areas might not be sufficient to mitigate losses. Other policies, directed towards the root causes of biodiversity loss, are required, both in Africa and other parts of the world.