The traditional use of native wild food plants (NWFP) may represent a valuable supplementary food source for the present and future generations. In Sicily, the use of wild plants in the human diet dates back to very ancient times and still plays an important role in some rural communities. Moreover, in this regard, the natural and cultural inheritance of this island is wealthy and diversified for several reasons. First, Sicily hosts a rich vascular flora, with 3,000 native and 350 endemic plants. Second, due to its central position in the Mediterranean, the island has acted as a veritable melting pot for the ethnobotanical knowledge of the rural communities of the entire basin. We reviewed all the available literature and, starting from such omnicomprehensive checklist, partially improved thanks to the data issuing from recent field investigations, we critically revised the whole species list, basing our review on field data issuing from interviews and on our expert knowledge. As a result, we provide a substantially updated list of 292 NWFP growing on the island. Further 34 species, reported as NWFP on previous papers were discarded because they are not native to Sicily, while 45 species were listed separately because their identity, occurrence and local use as food is doubtful and needs to be further investigated. Moreover, we tried to shed light on the ecology (growth form and preferential habitat) of the Sicilian NWFP, with special focus on crop wild relatives (CWR). Our preliminary ecological analyses point out that a high percentage of these plants are linked with the so-called ‘cultural’ landscapes, patchy semi-natural environments rich in ecotones, leading to the conclusion that the maintenance of century-old agro-pastoral practices may represent an effective way to preserve the local heritage of edible plants. Our study allowed to identify as much as 102 taxa of agronomic interest which could be tested as novel crops in order to face ongoing global changes and to comply with sustainable agriculture policies. Among them, 39 taxa show promising traits in terms of tolerance to one or more environmental stress factors, while 55 more are considered CWR and/or can be easily cultivated and/or show high productivity/yield potential.

Il presente contributo fornisce una sintesi aggiornata delle conoscenze floristiche sull'Isola di Marettimo (Arcipelago delle Egadi), da cui risulta che la flora vascolare attuale consiste di 492 taxa infragenerici, appartenenti a 291 generi e 92 famiglie. Di questi taxa, 28 risultano nuovi per il territorio e 37 vengono riconfermati dopo un secolo; di contro, 120 taxa precedentemente riportati per l'isola sono da escludere, o perché dovuti a segnalazioni errate (o quanto meno molto dubbie) pubblicate su contributi precedenti (23), o perché estinti in seguito alle recenti modificazioni dell'uso del territorio (97). Infine, la presenza di altre 54 entità, che probabilmente vivono tuttora sull'isola, merita ulteriori conferme. Lo spettro biologico indica una netta prevalenza delle terofite (51,8% della flora vascolare locale) e delle emicriptofite (18,9%). Lo spettro corologico rivela una dominanza dell'elemento mediterraneo (ca. 37,2%); si registra inoltre una significativa incidenza degli elementi a baricentro W-mediterraneo. Il contingente endemico e subendemico è rappresentato da 26 entità, delle quali 6—Bupleurum dianthifolium Guss., Thymus nitidus Guss., Limonium tenuiculum (Tineo) Pignatti, Helichrysum rupestre (Rafin) DC. var. messerii Pignatti, Allium franciniae Brullo & Pavone, Oncostema ughii (Tineo) Speta—sono esclusive dell'isola, uno (Brassica macrocarpa Guss.) vive solo nell'Arcipelago delle Egadi, 11 sono endemiche della Sicilia, cioè Anthemis secundiramea Biv. subsp. intermedia (Guss.) R. Fernandes, Asperula rupestris Tin., Bellevalia dubia (Guss.) Roem. et Schult. subsp. dubia, Carlina sicula Ten. subsp. sicula, Euphorbia papillaris (Boiss.) Raffaelli & Ricceri, Hornungia revelierei (Jordan) Soldano, F. Conti, Banfi et Galasso subsp. sommieri (Pamp.) Soldano, F. Conti, Banfi et Galasso, Plantago afra L. subsp. zwierleinii (Nicotra) Brullo, Pseudoscabiosa limonifolia (Vahl) Devesa, Ranunculus spicatus Desf. subsp. rupestris (Guss.) Maire e Seseli bocconi Guss. subsp. bocconi, o del Mediterraneo centrale, come Crocus longiflorus Raf., Daucus siculus Tineo, Dianthus rupicola Biv. subsp. rupicola, Iberis semperflorens L., Lithodora rosmarinifolia (Ten.) I. M. Johnston, Pimpinella anisoides Briganti, Micromeria fruticulosa (Bertol.) Bentham, Senecio willdenowii Peruzzi et Passalacqua, ecc. L'isola ospita inoltre numerose entità assenti o rare sul resto del territorio regionale, quali Aristolochia navicularis Nardi, Daphne sericea Vahl, Erodium maritimum (L.) L'Hér., Lagurus ovatus L. subsp. vestitus (Messeri) H. Scholz, Periploca angustifolia Labill., Reichardia tingitana (L.) Roth, Simethis mattiazzi (Vandelli) Sacc. e Thymelaea tartonraira (L.) All. Il patrimonio floristico appare vulnerabile, come dimostra un'analisi delle dinamiche in atto che ha permesso di identificare tre processi principali: 1) la rarefazione e talora l'estinzione di numerose entità tipiche delle comunità pre-forestali, forestali e rupicole; 2) la rapida scomparsa di molti taxa legati agli agroecosistemi ormai abbandonati; 3) l'introduzione recente di alcune specie alloctone. L'insieme di tali processi e l'estremo interesse della flora locale suggeriscono la necessità di adottare tempestivamente delle efficaci e dinamiche misure di conservazione del territorio, istituendo al più presto una riserva naturale.

Worldwide, large wildfires are becoming increasingly common, leading to economic damages and threatening ecosystems and human health. Under future climate change, more frequent fire disturbance may push ecosystems into non‐forested alternative stable states. Fire‐prone ecosystems such as those in the Mediterranean Basin are expected to be particularly vulnerable, but the position of tipping points is unclear. We compare long‐term palaeoecological data from Sardinia with output from a process‐based dynamic vegetation model to investigate the mechanisms controlling the complex interactions between fire, climate, and vegetation in the past and the future. Our results show that past vegetation changes from Erica‐shrublands to mixed evergreen‐broadleaved Quercus ilex‐dominated forests were driven by a climate‐induced fire regime shift. By simulating vegetation dynamics under varying fire regimes, we could reproduce Holocene vegetation trajectories and mechanistically identify tipping points. Without an immediate reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, we simulate future expansion of fire‐prone Mediterranean maquis and increasing fire occurrence. Similarly, high anthropogenic ignition frequencies and plantations of non‐native, highly flammable trees could induce a shift to fire‐adapted Erica shrublands. However, our simulations indicate that if global warming can be kept below 2°C, Quercus ilex forests will be able to persist and effectively reduce fire occurrences and impacts, making them a valuable restoration target in Mediterranean ecosystems. Synthesis. By combining long‐term records of ecosystem change with a dynamic vegetation model, we show that past climate‐driven fire regime shifts were the main driver of vegetation change, creating alternative stable states that persisted over centuries. Projected future climate change exceeding Holocene variability leads to pronounced vegetation changes and increased fire risks in our simulations, requiring new fire management strategies to maintain current ecosystem services.

The agricultural heritage of Lampedusa (Pelagie Archipelago, South Italy) and its key role for cultivar and wildlife conservation

Pasture practices have affected Mediterranean forest ecosystems for millennia, and they are still quite widespread in mountainous areas. Nevertheless, in the last decades, the stability of forest ecosystems has been jeopardized due to the abandonment of traditional agro-pastoral practices, so that the gradual reduction of open areas due to progressive succession processes has caused a high increase of grazing pressure by livestock and wild ungulates feeding on forest areas. This paper aims at showing a methodological approach for evaluating the effect of applying measures in order to improve the grazing value of grasslands and ecotonal patches and lower the grazing impact on native woodlands. A protected area in Sicily (Italy) is considered as a representative case study. The analysis of remotely sensed imagery and several field surveys enabled to identify and map six different land use units subject to grazing, i.e., (1) forests; (2) grasslands (pastures dominated by palatable herbs and grasses); (3) overgrazed grasslands (dominated by poisonous and/or thorny herbs and forbs, not palatable); (4) encroached pastures; (5) roadside firebreaks (dominated by palatable herbs) with no shrubs; and (6) wooded/ encroached roadside firebreaks. Several data were collected through sample plots selected within each land use unit, in order to assess their pastoral value. These data have been used to define current and optimal animal stock rates aiming at addressing pasture management planning towards a sustainable use of forestland and shrubland.