In the European Alps, due to the current changes in land use driven by different social and economic factors, grasslands and pastures are being increasingly replaced by forests. Whereas many studies have focused on the impacts of urbanisation and intensive agricultural activities, no study has evaluated the effects of changes among types of natural to semi‐natural land cover in the Alps with a focus on lotic environments. Here, combining taxonomic and functional approaches, we show the effects of four different alpine land cover types (rocks, grasslands, coniferous forests, valley bottom pastures) on stream benthic macroinvertebrate communities. Irrespective of elevation, grasslands and pastures exhibited unpredicted similarity in terms of the composition of the macroinvertebrate assemblages and hosted the highest diversity of benthic organisms, whereas in each of the other land cover types, the density and diversity of the faunal assemblages showed distinct and characteristic values. When analysing the functional diversity decomposed to richness, evenness, and divergence components, grasslands and pastures again showed a similar trend, being characterised by high levels of resource exploitation and niche differentiation, with the potential to host additional organisms. However, as expected, differences driven by land cover type and elevation emerged when examining the single functional traits, since elevation played a major role in terms of the distribution of traits conferring resistance and resilience. Our results demonstrate that land cover type is a prominent factor influencing the taxonomic and functional variety of stream benthic macroinvertebrate communities. Moreover, alpine grasslands contained an unexpected diversity of aquatic insects, as previously assessed for other organisms (e.g. plants and snails). Overall, our study highlights the importance of the preservation of the diversity of habitats in the alpine region, with a special focus needed for valuable semi‐natural landscapes, such as grasslands and pastures, particularly in a time of increasing intensification and abandonment of lands in the alpine context.

This paper investigates the relationship between spatial and institutional distances in research collaboration networks using data on co-authorship in scientific publications in the Italian “red” biotech sector. Specific tools of social network analysis complemented by multivariate analysis are used to show that there is a trade-off between institutional and geographic distances whatever the nature of the knowledge exchanged, namely the degree to which knowledge is basic or applied. However, the levels of geographic and institutional distances substantially differ across basic and applied research networks. Measures of the intensity of relationships are also considered in the analysis.

Travel patterns have dramatically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism has been both a vector and a victim of the disease. This paper explores the pandemic’s impact on rural tourism, using the theoretical framework of the “mobilities turn” to investigate issues of corporeal and communicative travel found between the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 874 guests visiting the Italian region of South Tyrol, where rural tourism is the norm, identified different patterns of physical travel and approaches to collecting on-site information on COVID-19. Results from a principal component analysis (PCA) and a cluster analysis highlighted at least two different approaches from visitors to the region: the first is more cautious, mostly practiced by domestic tourists, with limited mobility on-site, coupled with a need for information; the second is instead a more adventurous approach, with higher on-site mobility, more use of sustainable forms of transport and less interest in data evidence on COVID-19. Implications for rural tourism and its future are discussed. The hypothesis of an inverse relationship between corporeal and communicative travel needs further exploration in future research.

In order to assess the impact of covid-19 on catholic pastoral care, an exploratory study was conducted in South Tyrol (Italy) by administering an online survey to parish priests and laypeople with an office within the local Diocese. With reference to the lockdown period, the research aimed to investigate: (1) how pastoral care was delivered; (2) changes in the use of ict within religious activities; and (3) the vision of the future for the Church in a mediatized world. Respondents believe that: (1) pastoral activities have slowed down, even though contact with the faithful was kept up through phone or the Internet; (2) the level of digitalization of the parishes has increased; however, the communication was mostly one-way and top-down. Finally, results show that (3) attitudes towards digital media are divergent: they are perceived as having the potential to either strengthen or weaken the relationship between the Church and the faithful.