Patterns of Co-occurrence of Rare and Threatened Species in Winter Arable Plant Communities of Italy

Emanuele Fanfarillo,Giovanna Abbate,Marta Latini

doi:10.3390/d12050195

Abstract

Detecting patterns of species co-occurrence is among the main tasks of plant community ecology. Arable plant communities are important elements of agroecosystems, because they support plant and animal biodiversity and provide ecosystem services. These plant communities are shaped by both agricultural and environmental drivers. The pressure of intensive agriculture worldwide has caused the decline of many characteristic arable species and communities. Italy is the European country where arable plant biodiversity is the best preserved. In this study, we assessed the patterns of co-occurrence of rare and threatened arable plants in 106 plots of winter arable vegetation located from Piedmont to Calabria, in the mainland part of the country. For this purpose, we based our investigation on the analysis of a recently acquired dataset and on the European list of rare and threatened arable plants. We highlight how different species of conservation interest tend to occur in the same community. On the other hand, generalist and more competitive taxa show similar patterns of co-occurrence. We suggest that single species of conservation value could be suitable indicators of a well-preserved community. On the other hand, to be effective, conservation strategies should target the whole community, rather than single species.

Highlights

The concept of plant community relies on the identification of recurrent patterns of species co-occurrence
Given the availability of relevant, recent data and the general lack of information on this topic, we investigated the patterns of co-occurrence of rare and threatened arable species across mainland Italy, from the Piedmont region to the Calabria region
The dataset was recently used to highlight shifts in floristic composition, species richness and the Shannon diversity of winter arable plant communities along the bioclimatic type includes a steppic variant in subcontinental areas located in the lower elevations of the Po Plain, and a sub Mediterranean variant, which is found all across low and middle elevations of the Apennines

Summary

Introduction

The concept of plant community relies on the identification of recurrent patterns of species co-occurrence. These patterns can result from many different, non-mutually exclusive factors: chance, history of speciation and migration, dispersal, environmental factors, and biotic interactions between species [1]. Detecting patterns of species co-occurrence is one of the main tasks of plant community ecology and is required in order to understand the drivers that shape extant species assemblages. With regard to arable plant communities (i.e., the weed communities of arable land), very few studies have dealt with species co-occurrence and all have been conducted on a local or regional scale [4,5,6]

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion