Alien flora of Europe: Species diversity, temporal trends, geographical patterns and research needs
International audience; The paper provides the first estimate of the composition and structure of alien plants occurring in the wild in the European continent, based on the results of the DAISIE project (2004–2008), funded by the 6th Framework Programme of the European Union and aimed at “creating an inventory of invasive species that threaten European terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments”. The plant section of the DAISIE database is based on national checklists from 48 European countries/regions and Israel; for many of them the data were compiled during the project and for some countries DAISIE collected the first comprehensive checklists of alien species, based on primary data …
Overall (first) results of the ‘100 questions for biodiversity conservation in Mediterranean-type regions of the world’ initiative
Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MTEs), with their characteristic climate, occur in just five regions of the world: the Mediterranean Basin, the Cape Region of South Africa, Southwestern and South Australia, California, and central Chile. In spite of their small geographic area, they harbour a significant and exclusive proportion of the planet’s biodiversity. Biodiversity values in MTE are threatened by a range of factor including land use changes, overexploitation of natural resources, global climate changes, among others. Researchers have a key role in providing solutions for conserving biodiversity in face of these multiple stressors and socio-economic challenges. Under the scope of the So…
Alien plants and recipient habitats in the Mediterranean Basin: How similar they are?
Biological invasions have become one of the most critical issues related to global change. The aim of this work was to investigate alien plant species invasion levels in different habitats and alien species traits by comparing the naturalized flora in different areas of the same biogeographical region. The locations selected for study were 4 countries across the European Mediterranean basin comprising and east–west gradient, namely Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. Floristic similarity among the 4 countries was found very low, with only 30 species present in all four countries out of the 782 naturalized neophytes. The four alien floras share the same patterns of growth form (mostly herbs), l…
Priority questions for biodiversity conservation in the Mediterranean Basin
The Mediterranean Basin is considered one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, harbouring particularly high species richness and endemicity of taxonomic groups such as plants. This hotspot is unique at the global scale, because it has a history of intense anthropogenic influences that dates back to thousands of years, and where the current high-levels of biodiversity have thus been able to coexist with humans for millennia. Despite this long history of coexistence, biodiversity in the Mediterranean Basin is at risk due to a number of old and new anthropogenic stressors, including fast land use changes, overexploitation of natural resources, and global climate change. To tackle these proble…