Resurveying alpine grasslands in central and southern Apennines

Claudia Zitarelli ¹, Maurizio Cutini ¹

Roma Tre University ¹

Alpine ecosystems are considered important hotspots for biodiversity, yet they are among the most susceptible to climate and land-use change and biodiversity loss. Alpine grasslands, in particular, host a complex mosaic of highly specialized communities rich in endemic and rare plants and represent areas of prime conservation value. Changes in structure and composition of ecosystems can severely affect their functioning and the services that they provide, underlining the importance of monitoring ecosystems. Our aim is to track long-term changes in biodiversity and assess environmental change over more than 20 years by resurveying historical vegetation plots originally sampled in some of the most representative summits in central and southern Apennines. Selected plant communities are listed in the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC as Habitat 6170 (Alpine and subalpine calcareous grasslands) and Habitat 6230* (Species-rich Nardus grasslands, on siliceous substrates in mountain areas and submountain areas in Continental Europe). We will analyze changes in life forms, species richness and diversity. Plant functional traits from dominant species will be measured for a better understanding of plants’ ecological strategies. We expect to observe significant changes in community structure and composition and a general decrease in species cover of cold-adapted and specialized species and an upward shift of warm-adapted generalist species, due to the thermophylization process affecting mountain summits.

Main author career stage: PhD student

Contribution type: Poster

First choice session: 3. Biodiversity and global change

Second choice session: 2. Ecology