The disappearance of traditional agroecosystems and of their related biodiversity due to changes in agriculture is receiving an increasing attention in Europe. The use of databases on plant taxonomical, distributional, ecological, and functional traits is of crucial importance in conservation actions. The need to improve monitoring and reporting activities by improving the quality of biodiversity data is underlined by the European Biodiversity Strategy; thus, big databases like EUNIS, BISE, and EASIN were born. This project aims to fulfil a global analysis of the plant biodiversity existing in traditional agroecosystems of Italy, whose knowledge is currently lacking, by means of the collection, storage, and processing of original and archival data. The proposed actions will concern: the preparation of thematic databases on segetal flora and vegetation, including the features of plant species and communities; the analysis of data at different space (national, regional, local) and time scales; the production of thematic maps on plant biodiversity and its related topics; the development of new methods to estimate the nature value of agroecosystems; the detection of bioindicator plant species for floristic richness, agricultural intensity, and environmental quality. A special attention will be given to winter arable plants and communities, currently at high risk of disappearance in Europe, and subordinately to those of olive groves. The achieved results will provide an important basis for any future research, with special regards to the definition of conservation strategies for rural European plant biodiversity.
The proposed project will be able to provide the first real overview on plant biodiversity related to vanishing habitats as those produced by traditional agriculture on a national level. A special focus will be made on segetal species and communities of winter arable land, which are currently between the most threatened of disappearance, and are included in main European Red Lists, and subordinately of olive groves. The collection and storage of taxonomic, structural, distributional, and ecological information on the species, that will result in the construction of a big database in line with European directives on biodiversity, will provide an important source of data to be used in future researches; in fact, the lack of big thematic databases to produce large scale syntheses is one of the main problems in territorial botanical works. The analyses on the floristic diversity at regional and national scales will allow the detection of which areas in Italy own the highest conservational value in terms of agriculture-related plant biodiversity, and to highlight the main environmental and anthropic factors that drive or threaten it. The detailed investigation of the positive and negative impacts of agricultural practices on plant biodiversity and the detection of the current trends by means of diachronic analyses will provide a valid reference for future researches, especially in the perspective of the definition of conservation strategies. Thematic maps, with special regards to those on the richness in insect pollinated, allergenic, and herbicide resistant species, will be an innovative product of research, because never made before in Italy. Finally, the definition of methods to estimate the nature value of agricultural areas, also through the detection and use of bioindicators, will allow the widening to the whole Country of works that were till now carried out only at a local scale, providing useful tools for future studies.