Assessing naturalness of arable weed communities. A new index applied to a case study in central Italy
The interest in the ecological role of weed communities within arable fields has increased greatly in recent years. The aim of this work was to provide an original tool for arable land naturalness estimation, based on the many features of plants that colonize crops. Taking account of taxonomic, structural, chorological and ecological features of weed taxa as exoticism, Raunkier life-form and edaphic preference, a new index (Arable Land Naturalness Index – ALNI) was developed, which allowed for an evaluation score to be obtained for a given field.