Marco Malavasi

TL;DR: In this article, the spatial pattern of natural dune cover types, (Beaches with Pioneer annual vegetation, Herbaceous Dune Vegetation and Woody Dune vegetation) was described by patch-based (Patch Size and Shape Index) and edge-based metrics, (patch shared boundaries with manmade cover types) and compared using the nonparametric, Kruskal-Wallis median test.

TL;DR: In sites with high human pressure, a general simplification in the natural dune spatial pattern and a decline of plant richness but with a specific response for each cover type, which effectively describes fragmentation and biodiversity in dune ecosystems.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the impact of three main potential land sources on litter occurrence: urban areas, rivers and beach users, and found that urban areas are the main drivers for the occurrence of marine litter along central Italy's coastal ecosystems, suggesting that the presence of such litter on Lazio beaches could be effectively reduced by identifying failings in recycling and waste collection procedures and by improving waste processing systems and sewage treatment in urban areas.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed the use of landscape integrity, expressed by the number and length of boundary types among the aforementioned habitats, as an ecosystem functionality indicator, in order to plan a sustainable use of these threatened ecosystems, proper indicators to quantify ecological services and functions over time.

TL;DR: In this paper, the relationship between coastal habitats and local dune morphology along a Mediterranean coastal dune system by integrating field collected vegetation data and remotely sensed imagery was examined, and the role and strength of each morphological variable in determining the occurrence of EC habitats were assessed.