Plant Sociology (Jun 2021)

Shedding light on typical species: implications for habitat monitoring

  • Gianmaria Bonari,
  • Edy Fantinato,
  • Lorenzo Lazzaro,
  • Marta Gaia Sperandii,
  • Alicia Teresa Rosario Acosta,
  • Marina Allegrezza,
  • Silvia Assini,
  • Marco Caccianiga,
  • Valter Di Cecco,
  • Annarita Frattaroli,
  • Daniela Gigante,
  • Giovanni Rivieccio,
  • Giulio Tesei,
  • Barbara Valle,
  • Daniele Viciani,
  • Giulia Albani Rocchetti,
  • Claudia Angiolini,
  • Emilio Badalamenti,
  • Davide Barberis,
  • Matteo Barcella,
  • Giuseppe Bazan,
  • Andrea Bertacchi,
  • Rossano Bolpagni,
  • Federica Bonini,
  • Alessandro Bricca,
  • Gabriella Buffa,
  • Mariasole Calbi,
  • Silvia Cannucci,
  • Luigi Cao Pinna,
  • Maria Carmela Caria,
  • Emanuela Carli,
  • Silvia Cascone,
  • Mauro Casti,
  • Bruno Enrico Leone Cerabolini,
  • Riccardo Copiz,
  • Maurizio Cutini,
  • Leopoldo De Simone,
  • Andrea De Toma,
  • Michele Dalle Fratte,
  • Luciano Di Martino,
  • Romeo Di Pietro,
  • Leonardo Filesi,
  • Bruno Foggi,
  • Paola Fortini,
  • Roberto Gennaio,
  • Gabriele Gheza,
  • Michele Lonati,
  • Andrea Mainetti,
  • Marco Malavasi,
  • Corrado Marcenò,
  • Carla Micheli,
  • Chiara Minuzzo,
  • Michele Mugnai,
  • Carmelo Maria Musarella,
  • Francesca Napoleone,
  • Ginevra Nota,
  • Giovanna Piga,
  • Marco Pittarello,
  • Ilaria Pozzi,
  • Safiya Praleskouskaya,
  • Francesco Rota,
  • Giacomo Santini,
  • Simona Sarmati,
  • Alberto Selvaggi,
  • Giovanni Spampinato,
  • Adriano Stinca,
  • Francesco Pio Tozzi,
  • Roberto Venanzoni,
  • Mariacristina Villani,
  • Katia Zanatta,
  • Magda Zanzottera,
  • Simonetta Bagella

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3897/pls2020581/08
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 58, no. 1
pp. 157 – 166

Abstract

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Habitat monitoring in Europe is regulated by Article 17 of the Habitats Directive, which suggests the use of typical species to assess habitat conservation status. Yet, the Directive uses the term “typical” species but does not provide a definition, either for its use in reporting or for its use in impact assessments. To address the issue, an online workshop was organized by the Italian Society for Vegetation Science (SISV) to shed light on the diversity of perspectives regarding the different concepts of typical species, and to discuss the possible implications for habitat monitoring. To this aim, we inquired 73 people with a very different degree of expertise in the field of vegetation science by means of a tailored survey composed of six questions. We analysed the data using Pearson's Chi-squared test to verify that the answers diverged from a random distribution and checked the effect of the degree of experience of the surveyees on the results. We found that most of the surveyees agreed on the use of the phytosociological method for habitat monitoring and of the diagnostic and characteristic species to evaluate the structural and functional conservation status of habitats. With this contribution, we shed light on the meaning of “typical” species in the context of habitat monitoring.