CAROLINA PROJECT: PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF TAXONOMIC AND FUNCTIONAL PLANT DIVERSITY

Virginia Amanda Volanti ¹, Eugenia Siccardi ², Andrea Coppi ², Andrea Scartazza ³, Eleonora Peruzzi ³, Maurizio Sarti ⁴, Francesca Bretzel ³, Serena Doni ³, Leonardo Latilla ⁵, Michele Mattioni; Birhane Gebrehiwot Tesfamariam; Olga Gavrichkova; Lorenzo Lazzaro ⁶

University of Florence, Firenze, Italy; ¹, University of Florence, Firenze, Italy ², Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Pisa, Italy ³, Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Porano, Italy ⁴, 4Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Montelibretti, Italy. ⁵, Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Porano, Italia; Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Porano, Italia; Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Porano, Italia;University of Florence, Firenze, Italy; ⁶

Grasslands represent species-rich plant communities in Europe and their loss is one of the primary causes of terrestrial biodiversity depletion in the Mediterranean Basin. In Italy the abandonment of agro-pastoral activities has an important role in this process, leading to the wood encroachment and loss of grasslands cover. Furthermore, one hypothesis is that grazing makes the system climate-resilient by diversifying the ecological niches. The project CAROLINA (ClimAte Resilience Over Landuse change In semi-Natural grAsslands) aims to explore the potentiality of the grassland’s extensive management under different climate conditions in terms of biodiversity conservation and C sequestration and to examine changes in ecosystem resilience to climate change with land-use variation. The study took place in 3 sites located in different climatic zones of Italy: alpine pastures with moist cool climate (Pieve Tesino, TN), Mountain-Mediterranean pastures (San Rossore, Massaciuccoli, PI) and Mediterranean pastures with warm and dry climate (San Venanzo, Orvieto, TR). The project foresees a double approach used to evaluate the impact of grazing abandonment and climate change: a manipulation experiment and a chronosequence approach. During 2024, portions of grasslands in San Rossore and San Venanzo sites have been excluded from grazing through the installation of fences and portions of these areas are object of climate manipulation with structures that lead to a reduction of precipitation, to simulate the future climate trends. Between May and June 2024, we conducted the first floristic vegetation surveys and measurements of functional traits in the areas subject to climate manipulation in San Rossore and San Venanzo and in the chronosequence areas in Pieve Tesino. The preliminary analyses carried out concern taxonomic and functional diversity. Species richness is significantly higher at San Venanzo and there is no significant difference between the 3 manipulative layers, exclusion of grazing and reduction of rainfall, exclusion of grazing and control, in terms of diversity. The analysis of functional indices shows that functional richness has similar values in the same treatments of different sites. Other indices such as Rao's quadratic entropy, functional divergence, functional dispersion are significantly higher in San Rossore. At Pieve Tesino, the plant community in the chronosequence corresponding to pasture and the first stages of wood encroachment is typical of grasslands. Species richness is similar among these 3 stages, then drops in wood areas, where we observed a shift towards typical understory communities. Functional diversity reflects the taxonomic trend, but it was not possible to fully complete the surveys this year, so the analyses obtained are preliminary and will be finalised during the second year of the project. The data collected and analyses carried out in the year 2024 are at the zero point and need to be supplemented and compared with surveys and measurements of functional traits that will take place in 2025.

Main author career stage: Postdoc / Fellow

Contribution type: Poster

First choice session: 3. Biodiversity and global change

Second choice session: 2. Ecology