plant biodiversity

Recontructing paleoenvironments using ancient DNA

Recontructing paleoenvironments using ancient DNA

We are using the metabarcoding tecnique on sedimentary DNA (sedDNA) from three volcanic Italian lakes: Lago Grande di Monticchio, Lago di Nemi, and Lago di Martignano. At Monticchio, we have already identified over 90 plant taxa from a long sediment core covering the period from 1.4 to 31 thousand years before present. To maximize our results, we have developed new strategies to improve DNA extraction from mineral-adsorbed samples and counteract PCR inhibition. We are also testing new probes designed to capture short plant DNA sequences using shotgun sequencing.

Il Museo Orto Botanico di Roma dal medioevo a oggi. Caratteristiche, funzioni e prospettive

The history of the Botanical Garden of Rome has been documented since the Middle Ages, the period to which date back the first records relating to the papal Botanical Gardens that were planted in the Vatican grounds in order to grow and study plants of particular interest for medicine and food. In 1660, Alessandro VII entrusted the care of the papal Botanical Gardens to the University of Rome, which were moved from the Vatican to the Gianicolo area of Rome.

Projecting impacts of global climate and land-use scenarios on plant biodiversity using compositional-turnover modelling

Nations have committed to ambitious conservation targets in response to accelerating rates of global biodiversity loss. Anticipating future impacts is essential to inform policy decisions for achieving these targets, but predictions need to be of sufficiently high spatial resolution to forecast the local effects of global change. As part of the intercomparison of biodiversity and ecosystem services models of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, we present a fine-resolution assessment of trends in the persistence of global plant biodiversity.

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