An annotated checklist of the italian vascular flora: nomenclatural sources

Knowledge about the glacial refugia of the thermophilous European Castanea sativa Mill. (sweet chestnut) is still inadequate. Its original range of distribution has been masked by strong human impact. Moreover, under natural conditions the species was probably admixed with other taxa (such as Quercus, Fraxinus, Fagus, Tilia) and thus possibly represented by low percentages in pollen records. In this paper we try to overcome the difficulties related to the scarcity and irregularity of chestnut pollen records by considering 1471 sites and extending the palynological approach to develop a Castanea refugium probability index (IRP), aimed at detecting possible chestnut refugia where chestnuts survived during the last glaciation. The results are in close agreement with the current literature on the refugia of other thermophilous European trees. The few divergences are most probably due to the large amount of new data integrated in this study, rather than to fundamental disagreements about data and data interpretation. The main chestnut refugia are located in the Transcaucasian region, north-western Anatolia, the hinterland of the Tyrrhenian coast from Liguria to Lazio along the Apennine range, the region around Lago di Monticchio (Monte Vulture) in southern Italy, and the Cantabrian coast on the Iberian peninsula. Despite the high likelihood of Castanea refugia in the Balkan Peninsula and north-eastern Italy (Colli Euganei, Monti Berici, Emilia-Romagna) as suggested by the IRP, additional palaeobotanical investigations are needed to assess whether these regions effectively sheltered chestnut during the last glaciation. Other regions, such as the Isere Departement in France, the region across north-west Portugal and Galicia, and the hilly region along the Mediterranean coast of Syria and Lebanon were classified as areas of medium refugium probability. Our results reveal an unexpected spatial richness of potential Castanea refugia. It is likely that other European trees had similar distribution ranges during the last glaciation. It is thus conceivable that shelter zones with favourable microclimates were probably more numerous and more widely dispersed across Europe than so far assumed. In the future, more attention should be paid to pollen traces of sporadic taxa thought to have disappeared from a given area during the last glacial and post-glacial period.

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Quaternary refugia of the sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.): an extended palynological approach

Olea, Juglans and Castanea: The OJC group as pollen evidence of the development of human-induced environments in the Italian peninsula

Evaluation of extracts and essential oil from Callistemon viminalis leaves: Antibacterial and antioxidant activities, total phenolic and flavonoid contents

Integration of pollen data from both marine and terrestrial cores contributes to the understanding of the timing of the climatic and human forces that shaped the cultural landscapes in the Italian peninsula. This paper focuses on the relation between natural and human landscapes, and the development of the cultural landscape from the Bronze Age to the medieval period and modern times. Two records were studied within independent projects, first the marine core RF93-30, from the central Adriatic, with a sediment source area including the Po valley and which spans the last 7,000 years, and secondly, material from the site of Terramara di Montale, a Bronze Age settlement on the Po plain, which was occupied from approximately 3550–3200 cal. b.p. The original chronology of the marine core was developed by using the magnetic inclination of the secular variation record and two 14C dates carried out on benthic and planktic foraminifera at depths of 527 and 599 cm. Its pollen record shows a gradual irreversible trend towards increasing aridity since 5700 cal. b.p. and, just after around 5100 cal. b.p., a Picea decline and a Quercus ilex type increase indicate less cool conditions. Human impact introduces rapid changes, such as the decrease of Abies alba, thinned by the reduction of precipitation and further cleared before or during the Early Bronze Age, followed by the fall of oaks. The latter started after around 3900 cal. b.p., and became evident at around 3600 cal. b.p. The gradual increase in signs of open landscape and woodland clearance correspond to the onset of Middle Bronze Age settlements in the Po valley, and to the development of the cultural landscape in the region. The impact of the terramare people includes woodland management by coppicing, and division of the territory into a patchwork of pastures and fields. Dry environments are indicated mainly by Cichorioideae, resulting from the continued human pressure, and these spread since the Recent Bronze Age. Of the possible causes for the decline of the terramare, we suggest that climate would have been less important in the decline than in the onset phases. The later cultural landscapes are mainly indicated by the trends of the Olea, Juglans and Castanea (OJC) records, besides those of cereals. At around 700 cal. b.p., the “chestnut landscape” spread while modern times are shown by the finds of Zea mays.

A marine/terrestrial integration for mid-late Holocene vegetation history and the development of the cultural landscape in the Po valley as a result of human impact and climate change

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Cupressus sempervirens L.

The Late Antique plant landscape in Sicily: Pollen from the agro-pastoral villa del Casale - Philosophiana system

A pollen diagram drawn for a peat bog located at San Pellegrino, in a vast plain at 675 m a.s.1. near Pavullo nel Frignano (Modena, Italy), is of vegetation on the northern slope of the Tuscan/Emilian Apennines. This altitude is just below the lower limit of the Fagus‐Abies belt. The sequence, 20 m in depth, consists mostly of clayey sediments in its lower part, the upper part prevalently formed by peat. The upper complex is dated by 14C at 10,790 yr B.P. and 2590 yr B.P., the lower part of the sequence is dated by chronological comparison with Chiarugi's diagram (1950) and subsequent 14C updates (Bertolani Marchetti, 1985). The sequence apparently begins after 16,950 yr B.P., because its lower part does not reach the Salix tundra/Artemisia steppe located at the bottom of Chiarugi's diagram. The period of general dominance of Pinus over the existing Fagus and oak mixed forest runs from about 20 m and 12 m. The Lanscombe (?), Dryas I and Bolling phases fall here. After a hiatus that may contain the Dryas I...

Palynological diagram of the peat bog near Pavullo nel Frignano (Modena, Italy) in the framework of Tuscan/Emilian Apennines vegetation history.

The high-resolution Adriatic RF93-30 core shows changes in its microcharcoal record, which correlate to terrestrial fires from the last 7000 years. Pollen and microcharcoals were transported by win...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0959683619846982

Middle- to late-Holocene fire history and the impact on Mediterranean pine and oak forests according to the core RF93-30, central Adriatic Sea:

The vegetation of the Po Plain has long been modified by natural and human factors. The present plant landscape is almost entirely anthropogenic. Many hydro-hygrophilous species, quite common until a few decades ago, are now very rare and in danger of extinction, so conservation programmes are necessary for their protection and maintenance. It is known that the former vegetation can be reconstructed thanks to palynological data, but assessing the real presence of a given species is not always possible. This work aims to understand whether palynology can give information about the presence and identification of hydro-hygrophilous species, supporting the classical flora analyses commonly conducted on herbarium data. In some cases, these species are well characterized from a morphopalynological and phytogeographical viewpoint: the plant occurrence may be suggested even by pollen findings in surface-samples. Discovering the presence of some of these species by pollen morphotypes offers a real opportunity to gear the reintroduction/reinforcing programmes, but ecological analysis will obviously be essential to ascertain the real suitability of the chosen sites, according to the ecological requirements of the species. Our analysis refers to wetlands of the southern Po plain within the Modena Province, where detailed palynological data about present and historical local flora were available.

Daniele Dallai

Papers

Cupressus sempervirens L.

The Late Antique plant landscape in Sicily: Pollen from the agro-pastoral villa del Casale - Philosophiana system

Palynological diagram of the peat bog near Pavullo nel Frignano (Modena, Italy) in the framework of Tuscan/Emilian Apennines vegetation history.

Middle- to late-Holocene fire history and the impact on Mediterranean pine and oak forests according to the core RF93-30, central Adriatic Sea:

Can palynology contribute to plant diversity conservation activities? the wetland plants in southern po plain as a case study.