Shedding light on typical species: implications for habitat monitoring

By

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

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2021-6-30

Original Publication

Plant sociology

Volume

58

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

157--166

Subjects

92/43/EEC Directive , diagnostic and characteristic species , habitat monitoring , keystone species , Natura 2000 , plant community , structure and functions , typical species

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Pavia Società italiana di scienza della vegetazione 2012-2019

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/pls2020581/08

 

Abstract

Habitat monitoring in Europe is regulated by Article 17 of the Habitats Directive, which suggests the use of typical species to 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.