Ricerc@Sapienza

The topical collection ‘Twenty years of biodiversity research and nature conservation in the Socotra Archipelago’, in short ‘Socotra biodiversity research and nature conservation’ was conceived at the 18th Friends of Socotra annual meeting and Socotra conference which took place at the Orto Botanico di Palermo, Palermo, Italy, 26–29 September, 2019. In total, 13 research papers are included in the

Socotra Island, in the western Indian Ocean, harbors high biodiversity and endemism and makes up the largest part of the Socotra archipelago UNESCO World Heritage site. Its climatic, pedological, and geomorphological characteristics, together with the long geological isolation and inaccessibility, led to the flourishing of unique tree diversity, with great cultural and ecological value. Lately, trees on Socotra are facing new threats linked to the abandonment of traditional management practices, climate change impacts, and growing human pressure.

Biodiversity loss is a widely debated world problem, with huge economic, social, and environmentally negative consequences. Despite the relevance of this issue, the psychological determinants of committed action towards nature and biodiversity have rarely been investigated. This study aims at identifying a comprehensive social-psychological profile of activists committed to biodiversity protection and at understanding what determinants best predict their activism.

In biodiversity studies a species is often classified as original when it has few closely related species, a definition
that reflects its phylogenetic originality. More recently, studies have focussed on biological or functional traits
that reflect the role(s) that species play within communities and ecosystems. This has led many studies to an
alternative evaluation of species’ originality: its functional originality. Most indices of species' originality were

Measuring biodiversity is a key issue in ecology to guarantee effective indicators of ecosystem health at different spatial and time scales. However, estimating biodiversity from field observations might present
difficulties related to costs and time needed. Moreover, a continuous data update for biodiversity monitoring purposes might be prohibitive. From this point of view, remote sensing represents a powerful tool

Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is an efficient and easy-to-standardise molecular tool that has gained widespread importance during the past 10 years, as part of the worldwide campaign to investigate and monitor biodiversity by using globally accessible DNA-based systems (iBOL; https://ibol.org). Genetic methods are increasingly used to assess species diversity, as they are faster and often allow better taxonomic resolution than manual identification methods. However,...

CONISMA, CNR and CIRCE, involved Italian research units (RUs) working on cetaceans to joina National Network answering the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requirements by sharing
monitoring data. Data obtained during the 2016 monitoring campaigns by 13 RUs are presented here.

Although research on human-mediated exchanges of species has substantially intensified
during the last centuries, we know surprisingly little about temporal dynamics of alien species
accumulations across regions and taxa. Using a novel database of 45,813 first records of
16,926 established alien species, we show that the annual rate of first records worldwide has
increased during the last 200 years, with 37% of all first records reported most recently
(1970–2014). Inter-continental and inter-taxonomic variation can be largely attributed to the

Dryland biomes cover two-fifths of Earth's land surface, but their forest area is poorly known. Here, we report an estimate of global forest extent in dryland biomes, based on analyzing more than 210,000 0.5-hectare sample plots through a photo-interpretation approach using large databases of satellite imagery at (i) very high spatial resolution and (ii) very high temporal resolution, which are available through the Google Earth platform. We show that in 2015, 1327 million hectares of drylands had more than 10% tree-cover, and 1079 million hectares comprised forest.

An original method for the identification of High Natural Value farmlands is presented. Gathering information about land use (CORINE Land Cover), geomorphology (elevation and Terrain Ruggedness Index) and remote sensing data in a GIS environment we were able to develop a new detection process; its application to a wide sector of central Italy, in areas characterized by high biodiversity and relevant agronomic and cultural value, is presented. Thus, a new tool for diminishing sampling efforts and economic and time wastes in territorial studies is provided.