Journal ArticleDOI
Adaptive management as a tool to improve the conservation of endemic floras: the case of Sicily, Malta and their satellite islands
TLDR
In this article, the authors applied the concept of adaptive management to develop strategies for the conservation of endemic floras by considering, as a case study, Sicily, Malta and their neighboring small islands.Abstract:
The presence of endemic species is among the fundamental criteria for characterizing the biodiversity of a territory. Analyzing species richness, extinction level and distribution drivers is an important preliminary step to set conservation priorities and test environmental policies. This study applied the concept of adaptive management to develop strategies for the conservation of endemic floras by considering, as a case study, Sicily, Malta and their neighboring small islands. Adaptive management can be defined as the systematic acquisition and application of reliable information to improve management over time. The development of adaptive conservation strategies aimed preliminary: (1) to quantify endemic plant diversity; (2) to assess the current IUCN knowledge; (3) to analyze the spatial patterns of species distribution in relation to number of colonized habitats, preferential habitats, altitudinal range, and bedrock; (4) to assess whether Natura 2000 network contributed significantly to increase the overlap between endemic distributional areas and protected surface. Strictly Sicilian endemics were 202 taxa amounting to 7.0 % of the whole native flora (c. 2900 taxa). The current picture of extinction risk is still incomplete because over 50 % of endemics were never assessed or assessed with old IUCN criteria. The spatial range size of endemics depended by 40 % on bedrock, and altitudinal and niche breadth. Habitat type did not influence the range size of endemics. The overlap between endemic distributional areas and protected surface increased from 41.3 to 63.3 % with Natura 2000. Adaptive management needs measurable goals to test the progressive improvement of conservation strategies over time, and the reduction in threatened species may be considered as an indicator of successful conservation outcomes. Feedback plays an important role in the periodic revision of biodiversity assessment, distribution modeling, and environmental management, which are fundamental to predict conservation outcomes in the face of extreme uncertainty. In particular, the exhaustive knowledge of the IUCN status is a primary step to implement adaptive measures of conservation, especially as regards endemic floras that are potentially more vulnerable to large-scale or unpredictable and stochastic threats.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
An inventory of vascular plants endemic to Italy
TL;DR: The phytogeographic isolation of Sardinia and Sicily and the separation of peninsular Italy from Northern Italy is confirmed, and the relative isolation of Puglia with respect the remaining southern Italian pensinsular regions is also confirmed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Learning in Adaptive Management: Insights from Published Practice
TL;DR: This article conducted a systematic review using the Thomson Reuters Web of Science, and searched specifically for examples of the practical implementation of adaptive management between 2011 and 2013, i.e., excluding articles that suggested frameworks, models, or recommendations for future action.
Journal ArticleDOI
Vascular plant endemism in the Western Carpathians: spatial patterns, environmental correlates and taxon traits
Patrik Mráz,Dušan Barabas,Lucia Lengyelová,Peter Turis,András Schmotzer,Monika Janišová,Michał Ronikier +6 more
TL;DR: A strong positive correlation between the distribution range of endemic taxa and altitudinal and niche breadths and the best linear model explained almost 75% of endemic richness patterns, and included maximal altitude and its interactions with the proportion of calcareous areas and total area of OGUs as the best predictors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Endemic and alien vascular plant diversity in the small Mediterranean islands of Sardinia: Drivers and implications for their conservation
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored how endemic and alien vascular plant species richness and the compositional dissimilarity of small Mediterranean continental islands vary according to factors related to human activities, geography/landscape, and climate.
Journal ArticleDOI
New insights into the distribution patterns of Mediterranean insular endemic plants: The Sicilian islands’ group
TL;DR: In this article, a multiple linear regression was applied to identify which environmental variables influence significantly the range size of the strictly endemic plants from Sicily and its satellite islands, including the Maltese archipelago.
References
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Book
Discovering Statistics Using SPSS
Andy P. Field,Jeremy N.V. Miles +1 more
TL;DR: Suitable for those new to statistics as well as students on intermediate and more advanced courses, the book walks students through from basic to advanced level concepts, all the while reinforcing knowledge through the use of SAS(R).
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Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities
Norman Myers,Russell A. Mittermeier,Cristina G. Mittermeier,Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca,Jennifer Kent +4 more
TL;DR: A ‘silver bullet’ strategy on the part of conservation planners, focusing on ‘biodiversity hotspots’ where exceptional concentrations of endemic species are undergoing exceptional loss of habitat, is proposed.
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The genetic legacy of the Quaternary ice ages
TL;DR: The present genetic structure of populations, species and communities has been mainly formed by Quaternary ice ages, and genetic, fossil and physical data combined can greatly help understanding of how organisms were so affected.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a hierarchical dynamic puzzle to understand the relationship between habitat diversity and species diversity and the evolution of the relationships between habitats diversity and diversity in evolutionary time.
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