Conference Agenda

Almost 40% of amphibians are at risk of extinction. Anthropogenic habitat loss plays an important role with dramatic consequences on species persistence. Recently, artificial sites, associated with traditional farming, proved to represent an effective surrogate of natural sites.

Here, we deepened the ecological and genetic value of artificial sites for the conservation of Triturus carnifex and Lissotriton vulgaris within protected areas interested by traditional farming (e.g., Lazio, Abruzzo, and Molise National Park).

GLMs, based on a sample of 58 drinking troughs and 1279 individuals, highlight that mud occurrence, macrophyte cover and intermediate management positively affect L.vulgaris occurrence and abundance.

Morphometric, trophic, and environmental data from 8 sites and 189 individuals, show that drinking troughs represent suitable habitats sustaining healthy and specialized T.carnifex.

Microsatellite markers, performed on 470 samples from 7 natural sites and 14 drinking troughs, show that artificial sites, connected to natural waters, have a stepping-stone function favouring L.vulgaris dispersal and gene flow.

A deep understanding of habitat requirements, food strategy and genetic diversity is crucial to guide conservation actions and management of artificial sites in protected areas. The recognition of their conservation value is timely given the decreasing of traditional practices and the threatened status of amphibians.

European Biodiversity Strategy states that >30% of terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas, should be protected by 2030. European strategy also includes the ambitious goal of having 1/3 of the protected area under a strict protection regime. Islands are extremely vulnerable to biotic invasions, species extinctions, habitat degradation, and loss of ecosystem functionality. Therefore, protecting significant fractions of island areas, and possibly entire islands, is fundamental to guarantee the persistence of their biodiversity and ecological interactions. We analyzed the protection level (IUCN classification) of 2212 Mediterranean islands larger than 10.000 m2, by overlapping the new island geodatabase (MEDIS) with the Nationally designated areas. The percentage of protected island area is relatively low (<15%) and most of it is classified under the lowest conservation categories (IV, V and VI). The strictest conservation categories (Ia, Ib and II) cumulatively cover <2% of the total area of Mediterranean islands, indicating a substantial gap from the 10% target. Only a few islands are entirely (>90%) protected under strict conservation. While recognizing the limits of the data, we highlight the need for a conservation planning of Mediterranean islands designated to allow the long-term persistence of fundamental biogeographical processes, as well as rewilding processes.

The Habitats Directive aims to protect over 200 Habitats (sensu Habitat Directive). Each Member State reports the presence of Habitat within 100 km2 cells. According to the latest report, only 15% of the Habitats are in good status. Nevertheless, an accurate prioritization at the continental scale is lacking. Here we present a new approach to identify the Habitats and areas that need more protection effort.

Given the coarse resolution of the available data, to assess which Habitats need more conservation effort we model the number of occurrences for each Habitat with the N2k cover within cells (in percentage). From the obtained fit, we calculate the integrals of the curve that it’s 1 if the Habitat falls in the highest number of cells fully protected or 0 in the opposite case. We use the Sum of the Inverse of the Integrals (SII) to assess the cells that need protection the most. Then, we model SII as a function of protection percentage. Using the model’s residuals, we identify which cells need more protection effort. The method proposed can be widely applied also for species and considering different grid resolutions, which will be useful for planning the future expansion of the N2k network.

Systematic conservation planning is a rigorous and repeatable approach to plan conservation actions such as the design of new protected areas that effectively meet conservation objectives (e.g. preserving biodiversity). In this study, we adopt a systematic conservation planning approach in three Mediterranean marine areas: the Northern Adriatic Sea, the Straits of Sicily and the Northern Tyrrhenian Sea. We formulate strategic objectives for maintaining marine functional connectivity between marine protected areas. We then apply the 'prioritizr' package to formulate and solve spatial conservation prioritization problems that integrate different objectives for marine connectivity. The resulting priority areas for conservation will be used to build and analyze three scenarios of the Italian maritime spatial planning (MSP): 1) Slow pace (following the current trends of economic development and environmental regulations ); 2) Blue development (promotion of fast growth and innovations using a “build-with-nature” vision); and 3) Nature@Work (reducing negative effects by adopting strict measures for protecting valuable and vulnerable marine ecosystems). Identifying functionally connected network of protected areas within MSP will help safeguarding the environment from additional anthropogenic pressures while finding space for new uses across multiple scenarios.

Italy is a highly biodiverse country and is dedicated to achieving ambitious conservation and restoration goals aligned with the European Union's biodiversity strategy for 2030. To effectively plan spatial conservation efforts, it is crucial to comprehend the current and future spatial distribution of biodiversity components.

We focused on amphibians, reptiles, and mammal species. We obtained occurrence data from open data infrastructures (i.e., GBIF, iNaturalist) and employed an ensemble forecasting approach to predict species distribution using climate and land-use drivers. Subsequently, we projected current and future (2050-2100) species distributions considering alternative greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.

A significant number of species is predicted to face range shift and/or contraction by 2100, causing alterations in patterns of species richness and composition. These results are fundamental for the identification of areas of current and future relevance for biodiversity conservation.

Italy is one of the most densely populated countries in the European Union and among the ones with the highest proportion of landscape fragmentation and sealed soil. Therefore, protecting the remaining roadless area is key to meeting international commitments for nature conservation and restoration. Within the frame of the activities carried out by the National Biodiversity Future Center for biodiversity conservation planning, we explored the potential contribution of Italian roadless areas to achieve biodiversity protection targets. First, we delimited roadless areas at high spatial resolution based on data from OpenStreetMap by buffering road and rail infrastructure. Then, we retrieved Italian terrestrial protected areas from the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA), and assessed how much roadless area is currently protected. To assess the environmental representativeness of the abovementioned spatial datasets, we analysed their distribution across biogeographic regions and vegetation types. Furthermore, we characterised them based on their abiotic envelope and biodiversity patterns. Finally, we explored the potential contribution of currently unprotected roadless areas to complement the current network of protected areas in terms of additional extent and coverage of the environmental template. This research explores the opportunity of protecting the remaining infrastructure-free areas in Italy while identifying possible gaps.