In Mediterranean-climate areas, wildfires have an important ecological role, selecting organisms, influencing species composition and structure of vegetation, and shaping landscapes. However, the increase in frequency and severity of fires can cause, among others, progressive vegetation degradation, biodiversity, and ecosystem services loss. Under the climate change scenario, the frequency and severity of wildfires are expected to increase, especially in the Mediterranean Basin, recognized as among the most affected by the intensification of droughts and heat waves in the future. Therefore, from the perspective of adaptation, it is important not only to assess the sudden effects after a fire but also to investigate the ecological changes and vegetation response over time. In this framework, this study investigates the effects and the short-term vegetation response in an area struck by a megafire. The vegetation response one year after a fire has been assessed in semi-natural grasslands, shrublands, and woodlands at the landscape scale through spectral indices, and at the field scale through floristic and vegetation surveys. Our results showed that after a severe wildfire, although some areas did not exhibit vegetation regrowth, the response of natural vegetation was notable after one year. In the study area, the most resilient vegetation type was semi-natural grasslands, suggesting that this type of vegetation can be crucial for landscape recovery. The other vegetation types showed different response patterns that also prefigure possible changes in species composition and loss of plant diversity over the medium term. This study highlights the value of combining remote sensing spectral analyses and detailed floristic and vegetation surveys for understanding the direction of the early stages of post-fire vegetation dynamics.

The Mediterranean Basin is one of the World’s plant diversity hotspots and a region prone to several anthropic pressures, besides being one of the World’s areas most susceptible to climate change. In this region, which hosts a high percentage of threatened species, there has been a large increase in practical conservation actions to prevent the extinction of many plants or improve their conservation status. In this framework, plant translocations have become increasingly important. To obtain a picture of the status and to depict possible directions, data on plant translocations was collected through the available databases, national experts, and the grey literature available online. Overall, a list of 836 translocations relating to 572 plant species was found. These actions are mainly concentrated in Spain, France, and Italy (c. 87%) and, except for some pioneering actions, translocations have strongly increased starting from 2010. A subsequent in-depth bibliographic search of the scientific databases was conducted to determine how much information about plant translocations was documented in the scientific literature. This search resulted in a list of 133 peer-reviewed papers, of which only 17 describing one or more translocations and, as a whole, reporting 101 experiences carried out on 56 plant species. Our research highlighted a great discrepancy between the scarce scientific documentation in comparison to the large number of practical conservation actions carried out. The great experience gained in these translocations constitutes an enormous heritage potentially available to implement the necessary conservation actions to preserve the plant diversity of the Mediterranean Basin.

Beach litter is one of the most pervasive pollution issues in coastal environments worldwide. In this study, we aim to assess the amount and distribution of beach litter on Porto Paglia beach, its entrapment across psammophilous habitats, and whether the invasive Carpobrotus acinaciformis (L.) L.Bolus plays a different role in trapping litter than native vegetation. To this end, two seasonal samplings (in spring and autumn) were conducted using a paired sampling method that considers plots in all coastal habitats with and without C. acinaciformis. Our results confirm that the main beach litter category is plastic, and that its distribution varies across habitats: the white dune seems to play a greater role in trapping and filtering beach litter, reducing its amount in the backdune. A correlation was found between the Naturalness index (N) and the beach litter amount, supporting the finding that invaded habitats trap beach litter better than native ones.

In a global climate change scenario “Extreme climatic events” are expected to widely affect flora and vegetation in Med-regions, especially “Extremes Rainfall Events” which will have impacts on riparian environments. Aiming to provide an in-depth picture on the effects of these events on the riparian flora and vegetation in the Mediterranean Basin, especially focusing on islands, a bibliographic search was performed in the main international databases, which led to 571 articles published from 2000 to 2021. Most studies have analyzed these phenomena from the climatic point of view identifying three main topics “Rainfall”, “Global/Climate change”, and “Flood”. 81 papers concerned effects of extreme events on Mediterranean woodland formations and cultivated plants. A further analysis focused on European countries and Mediterranean bioregion using “Extreme rainfall events” and “Extreme rainfall and floods” as keywords. A low number of records relating to Mediterranean island regions was found, having Sicily as the study area. Moreover, seven articles had Sardinia as a study area, four of which referred to flora and vegetation. A lack of studies on the effects of extreme rainfall events on riparian flora and vegetation were highlighted. This review constitutes a call for researchers to explore extreme phenomena that have become recurrent in the Mediterranean Basin.

In Mediterranean regions, fires are a key ecological factor, altering soil properties, biodiversity, and landscape dynamics. Post-fire recovery varies based on vegetation type, fire severity, and climate conditions. However, the specific relationship between post-fire vegetation recovery and soil temperature regimes remains poorly investigated. This study investigates this relationship in an area severely affected by a megafire. Three plots (unburned, low-severity fire, and high-severity fire) were monitored for species richness, vegetation cover and height, and soil temperature, with data from 2021 to 2024 analyzed. Vegetation surveys revealed that fire severity influenced species richness and vegetation cover and height. Particularly, burned areas showed a higher proliferation of pioneer and herbaceous species three years post-fire. Moreover, after the same period, burned areas showed consistently higher soil temperatures than the unburned ones, reflecting altered microclimatic conditions. This could be because the presence of more pioneer and herbaceous species is insufficient to mitigate the air temperatures. Our results show the impact of fires on soil and vegetation, highlighting the critical role of vegetation in modeling soil temperature. However, long-term monitoring is necessary to assess the real effect of vegetation type on soil temperature.