Biodiversity loss is a global issue, particularly in mountain regions, where land-use/land-cover and climate change dramatically impact on species and communities. Sound ecological research and up-to-date information on biodiversity are needed to support conservation efforts. However, this information is often difficult and costly to obtain. Therefore, bioindicators serve as surrogates to provide information on the entire biocenosis. Birds are considered excellent bioindicators as they occupy different ecological niches and trait spaces.We present a study about the efficiency of birds as bioindicators for the diversity of other taxa in a mountain region in the Central Alps. We surveyed bird communities at 115 sites across a gradient of different grasslands and crops and compared them with the diversity of other taxa (bats, butterflies, grasshoppers, arachnids, and vascular plants). We aimed to identify indicator bird species for grasslands and crops, to assess cross-community concordance between birds and other taxa, and to model the efficiency of bird indices and indicator species as bioindicators of the diversity across habitat types and taxa.We identified indicator bird species for different grassland and crop types and found that efficiency of bird indices and single species varied for habitat types and taxa. We highlight the importance of using carefully selected bioindicators in biodiversity monitoring and conservation planning, and the need for an integrated and interdisciplinary approach for biodiversity research. Moreover, by looking at a combination of different indices we can gain a more comprehensive understanding of ecosystem functioning. We also provide a framework for the use of bird-based monitoring programs and bird-derived indices to guide biodiversity conservation, and emphasise the importance of incorporating different bioindicators into biodiversity research and monitoring to provide a more comprehensive understanding of ecological biodiversity patterns and trends.

Changes in agricultural land use and management are largely responsible for the current global biodiversity crisis. Addressing this crisis necessitates a change in management practices that are considered to limit biodiversity. Comparing intensive land-use forms with their extensive and traditional counterparts can help define good practice example for integrated conservation. We compare remnants of traditional meadow orchards with intensively managed apple orchards in a mountain region by investigating the multi-taxonomic diversity of seven groups (including vascular plants, wild bees, diurnal butterflies, orthopterans, spiders, birds, and bats) and macro-invertebrates inhabiting four habitat strata (soil, ground-dwelling, herb, and tree layer). Each group and stratum was sampled with a target sampling method. We found a consistent trend of higher abundance, diversity, and presence of threatened species in meadow orchards compared to apple orchards. Specifically, wild bees, butterflies, orthopterans, and birds showed significantly lower diversity in apple orchards across different diversity indices. Furthermore, multi-taxonomic indices of all taxa and most habitat strata followed the same trend, supporting the conclusion that these findings are applicable to the entire orchard ecosystem. We conclude that traditional agroforestry systems, such as meadow orchards, could represent a well-suited good-practice example for integrated biodiversity conservation in the agricultural landscape. Finally, we emphasize the importance of maintaining traditional management practices through effective conservation measures such as subsidies as part of agri-environmental schemes.

The severe biodiversity decline in European agricultural landscapes demands a specific evaluation of the various land-use practices. Many butterflies in Europe, as an important ecological indicator and pollinator taxon, require human interventions to sustain their populations in cultivated landscapes. However, land-use changes and management intensification are currently responsible for their decline. In this study, we compare butterfly communities occurring on 93 sites in seven widely distributed land-use types, viz. extensive meadows and pastures, semi-intensive meadows, vineyards, arable land, settlements and apple orchards. We recorded a high butterfly diversity in supposedly high nature-conservation value (HNV) grasslands (extensive meadows and pastures). All other land-use types showed significantly lower diversity, with decreasing diversity from semi-intensive meadows to apple orchards. Moreover, functional traits uncovered a general trend: extensive grasslands supported communities of more specialized and sedentary species whilst all other non-HNV land-use types showed communities characterized by mobile generalists. Community composition was driven by the land-use type and explained by plant-based indicator values for nutrients and light and temperature variables. Important life-history traits further correlated with site variables confirming the shift from specialists to generalists along increasing land-use intensity gradients and the effect of the thermal environment on phenological traits. We found supporting evidence for the effectiveness of regional Agri-Environmental Measures for butterfly conservation in European cultural landscapes and for the European conservation schemes to focus at least partly on the preservation of HNV grasslands with extensive management. Furthermore, we clearly show the poor ecological state of butterfly communities in more disturbed land-use types (including urban areas) and propose adopting measures to improve butterflies’ conservation in these environments.

Questions Species-area relationships (SARs) are fundamental for understanding biodiversity patterns and are generally well described by a power law with a constant exponent z. However, z-values sometimes vary across spatial scales. We asked whether there is a general scale dependence of z-values at fine spatial grains and which potential drivers influence it. Location Palaearctic biogeographic realm. Methods We used 6,696 nested-plot series of vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens from the GrassPlot database with two or more grain sizes, ranging from 0.0001 m(2) to 1,024 m(2) and covering diverse open habitats. The plots were recorded with two widespread sampling approaches (rooted presence = species "rooting" inside the plot; shoot presence = species with aerial parts inside). Using Generalized Additive Models, we tested for scale dependence of z-values by evaluating if the z-values differ with gran size and tested for differences between the sampling approaches. The response shapes of z-values to grain were classified by fitting Generalized Linear Models with logit link to each series. We tested whether the grain size where the maximum z-value occurred is driven by taxonomic group, biogeographic or ecological variables. Results For rooted presence, we found a strong monotonous increase of z-values with grain sizes for all grain sizes below 1 m(2). For shoot presence, the scale dependence was much weaker, with hump-shaped curves prevailing. Among the environmental variables studied, latitude, vegetation type, naturalness and land use had strong effects, with z-values of secondary peaking at smaller grain sizes. Conclusions The overall weak scale dependence of z-values underlines that the power function generally is appropriate to describe SARs within the studied grain sizes in continuous open vegetation, if recorded with the shoot presence method. When clear peaks of z-values occur, this can be seen as an expression of granularity of species composition, partly driven by abiotic environment.

Aims: Understanding fine- grain diversity patterns across large spatial extents is fundamental for macroecological research and biodiversity conservation. Using the GrassPlot database, we provide benchmarks of fine- grain richness values of Palaearctic open habitats for vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens and complete vegetation (i.e., the sum of the former three groups). Location: Palaearctic biogeographic realm. Methods: We used 126,524 plots of eight standard grain sizes from the GrassPlot database: 0.0001, 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 1, 10, 100 and 1,000 m 2 and calculated the mean richness and standard deviations, as well as maximum, minimum, median, and first and third quartiles for each combination of grain size, taxonomic group, biome, region, vegetation type and phytosociological class. Results: Patterns of plant diversity in vegetation types and biomes differ across grain sizes and taxonomic groups. Overall, secondary (mostly semi- natural) grasslands and natural grasslands are the richest vegetation type. The open- access file ”GrassPlot Diversity Benchmarks” and the web tool “GrassPlot Diversity Explorer” are now available online (https://edgg.org/datab ases/Grass landD ivers ityEx plorer) and provide more insights into species richness patterns in the Palaearctic open habitats. Conclusions: The GrassPlot Diversity Benchmarks provide high- quality data on species richness in open habitat types across the Palaearctic. These benchmark data can be used in vegetation ecology, macroecology, biodiversity conservation and data quality checking. While the amount of data in the underlying GrassPlot database and their spatial coverage are smaller than in other extensive vegetation- plot databases, species recordings in GrassPlot

In this contribution, new data concerning red algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the algal genus Thorea, for the bryophyte genera Ephemerum, Hedwigia, Pogonatum, Riccia, Sphagnum, and Tortella, the fungal genera Pileolaria and Sporisorium, and the lichen genera Bacidia, Cerothallia, Chaenotheca, Cladonia, Halecania, Lecanora, Phylloblastia, Physcia, Protoparmelia, Pycnora, Segestria, and Sphaerophorus.

Coastal tourism is a growing industry sector in the Mediterranean Basin. This and the other human activities occurring along the coastline share space and resources, leading to conflicts for divergent uses. Moreover, the overexploitation of natural resources degrades and depletes coastal habitats, with negative feedback effects for all human activities. Hence, both tourism and the other human activities have to consider their dependence on coastal ecosystem services, and act at technical and policy level to reach a compromise that preserves natural resources in the long term. Here we provide a conceptual framework illustrating the complex relationships and trade-offs among threats from coastal tourism and from other human activities and coastal ecosystem services, with a focus on cultural ones. We discuss the negative feedbacks on tourism development and provide examples of geospatial analysis on cumulative threats generated by other human activities and affecting tourism itself. The proposed conceptual framework and the threat analysis aim at highlighting the negative feedback effects of human driven threats on the development of Mediterranean coastal tourism, through an ecosystem service perspective. Both tools provide valuable insight for supporting decision makers and planners in achieving integrated coastal management, with a focus on sustainable tourism.