Ricerc@Sapienza

An updated inventory of the native vascular flora of Italy, providing details on the occurrence at regional
level, is presented. The checklist includes 8195 taxa (6417 species and 1778 subspecies), distributed in
1092 genera and 152 families; 23 taxa are lycophytes, 108 ferns and fern allies, 30 gymnosperms and 8034
angiosperms. The taxa currently occurring in Italy are 7483, while 568 taxa have not been confirmed in
recent times, 99 are doubtfully occurring in the country and 19 are data deficient. Out of the 568 not

A new high-resolution pollen record, spanning the last five millennia, is presented from the Gulf of Gaeta (Tyrrhenian Sea, central Italy), with the aim of verifying if any vegetation change occurred in the central

Cadmium (Cd) and arsenic (As), non essential, but toxic, elements for animals and plants are frequently present in paddy fields. Oryza sativa L., a staple food for at least the half of world population, easily absorbs As and Cd by the root, and in this organ the pollutants evoke consistent damages, reducing/modifying the root system. Auxins are key hormones in regulating all developmental processes, including root organogenesis. Moreover, plants respond to environmental stresses, such as those caused by Cd and As, by changing levels and distribution of endogenous phytohormones.

Climatic and environmental changes of the Middle Pleistocene in Europe provide the context for an important phase in the evolution and dispersal of early hominins. Pollen records from terrestrial and marine sediment sequences reveal patterns not usually visible in palaeoenvironmental reconstructions from archaeological sites alone and show that hominin evolution took place against a background of marked environmental change as forests expanded and contracted in concert with global and regional climatic shifts.

The responsiveness of net photosynthetic rate (Aa) to mean monthly air temperature (TM) of eight Mediterranean
evergreen species was investigated by analyzing the inter-annual changes in leaf mass area (LMA), leaf tissue
density (LTD) and leaf thickness (LT). We wanted to test if species leaf habitus affected this response. To hit the
goal, a multi-year dataset from our previously published papers was used. The inter-annual variability in LMA,
LTD and LT was assessed by their coefficients of variation (CVs). Aa sensitivity to TM (SAa) was quantified by the

Jassa slatteryi is a cosmopolitan amphipod reported as cryptogenic or invasive species throughout the world. Although it had been signaled in the Mediterranean Sea, it was never found on the Italian coasts. This study represents the first record of J. slatteryi in Italy. A total of 87 specimens were collected on artificial hard substrates in the Port of Civitavecchia (Rome). The presence of this species in the Mediterranean Sea was probably underestimated due to the similar morphological features and ecological requirements of different species of Jassa spp.

Assessing biodiversity from field-based data is difficult for a number of practical reasons: (i) establishing the total
number of sampling units to be investigated and the sampling design (e.g. systematic, random, stratified) can be
difficult; (ii) the choice of the sampling design can affect the results; and (iii) defining the focal population of
interest can be challenging. Satellite remote sensing is one of the most cost-effective and comprehensive approaches