Search results for "Endemism"
showing 10 items of 206 documents
Mammals of Italy: An annotated checklist
2019
Checklists represent a basic tool for conservation and management of regional faunas. However, our knowledge on species composition in a territory changes over time due to species movements across borders, extinctions, introductions, as well as to new taxonomic evidence. We aimed to provide the most updated data on native and non-native species of mammals occurring, or that used to occur until recently, on the Italian political territory and seas. The checklist only includes species whose taxonomic status was explicitly agreed in the most recent peer-reviewed literature and based on the most updated taxonomic approaches. For each species, we provided the following information: scientific an…
The Mediterranean dwarf shubs: origin and adaptive radiation
2006
Basing on literature data, a synthesis on the morphologic, anatomic and physiologic adaptations of the Mediterranean dwarf shrubs is outlined. Three different functional types can be recognized: saltbushes, thermo-xerophilous fire-resistant dwarf shrubs and orophilous cushion-shrubs. The thermo-xerophilous fire-resistant dwarf shrubs mainly derive from the Mesogean flora and differentiated after the beginning of the Oligocene, and especially from the Pliocene, in the coastal regions around the Tethys Sea, as the result of a local adaptive radiation triggered by the shifting from subhumid to semiarid climatic conditions at the boundary between the tropical and the temperate zone. For the oth…
New records of amphipod crustaceans along the Israeli Mediterranean coast, including a rare Mediterranean endemic species, Maera schieckei Karaman & …
2020
A survey has been carried out at four Israeli rocky sites to evaluate the diversity of the amphipod fauna on various hard substrates, still scarcely monitored, as potential pabulum for amphipod crustacean species. A survey of shallow rocky reefs along the Mediterranean coast of Israel recovered 28 species and integrated the Amphipoda checklist for the country ofIsrael with 12 newly-recorded species. Such renewed national list includes Maera schieckei Karaman & Ruffo, 1971, a rare species endemic to the Mediterranean Sea, recorded here for the first time from the southern Levant Basin. The species, described from specimens collected in the Tyrrhenian Sea in 1970, has been only record…
Hotspots of species richness, threat and endemism for terrestrial vertebrates in SW Europe
2011
The Mediterranean basin, and the Iberian Peninsula in particular, represent an outstanding “hotspot” of biological diversity with a long history of integration between natural ecosystems and human activities. Using deductive distribution models, and considering both Spain and Portugal, we downscaled traditional range maps for terrestrial vertebrates (amphibians, breeding birds, mammals and reptiles) to the finest possible resolution with the data at hand, and we identified hotspots based on three criteria: i) species richness; ii) vulnerability, and iii) endemism. We also provided a first evaluation of the conservation status of biodiversity hotspots based on these three criteria considerin…
On the Presence of Pipistrelle Bats (PipistrellusandHypsugo; Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in Sardinia
2011
Islands are biodiversity hotspots, often containing numerous endemic species. This makes them also hotspots for conservation. Within the Mediterranean region, Sardinia is known for its comparatively high degree of endemism, including cryptic diversity. In this paper we aim to elucidate the variability of pipistrelles (Pipistrellus and Hypsugo) on Sardinia. More specifically, we ask which species occur on Sardinia and we describe the geographic affiliations of these evolutionary lineages. We sequenced ca. 560 bp of the 16S rRNA gene from 36 pipistrelle specimens representing 17 localities from all major parts of Sardinia. For comparison we added samples from the entire Mediterranean region a…
The Pamir-Alai Mountains (Middle Asia: Tajikistan)
2020
The Pamir-Alai Mountains are extremely diverse in terms of climate, landscape and habitat conditions. With one of the largest altitudinal amplitudes in the world, long gradients of precipitation and temperatures, different soil substrates and a diverse geology, the Pamir-Alai promotes a great number of plant species and diverse vegetation types. Currently almost 4300 vascular plant species have been reported from the area. The flora of the Pamir-Alai is clearly dominated by Irano-Turanian species (ca. 70%) followed by Mediterranean (10.6%) and Euro-Siberian species (9%). Out of a ca. 4300 known vascular plants naturally occurring in Tajikistan, 1486 are endemics belonging to 60 families and…
Guaianolides and lignans from the aerial parts of Centaurea ptosimopappa.
2006
The genus Centaurea L. (Asteraceae, tribe Cardueae, subtribe Centaureinae) comprises ca. 600 species distributed in Asia, Europa, North Africa and America (Hickey and King, 1981; Heywood, 1979). Turkish flora numbers 187 species, 114 of which being endemic (Davis, 1975; Davis et al., 1988; Wagenitz et al., 1988; Guner et al., 2000; Duran and Duman, 2000; Turkoglu et al., 2003). Centaurea ptosimopappa Hayek is an endemic species distributed in the Mediterranean and South-Eastern Anatolian regions of Turkey; widespread and locally frequent in the Amanos and Casus mountains (Davis, 1975; Reeves and Adiguzel, 2004). Aerial parts of C. ptosimopappa were collected in Hatay, the Amanos Mountain ab…
Floristic traits and biogeographic characterization of the Gennargentu massif (Sardinia)
2013
A study on the vascular flora of the Gennargentu Massif (Central-Eastern Sardinia) is presented. According to our results, the flora consists of 948 taxa: 686 species, 249 sub- species, 10 varieties and 3 hybrids, belonging to 97 families and 427 genera. Three taxa are new findings for the flora of Italy and eight for that of Sardinia. Life form analysis revealed, in particular, dominance of 35.65 % hemicryptophytes, 34.6 % therophytes, 12.13 % geophytes and 11.6 % (nano)-phanero- phytes. As concerns chorology, the Mediterranean element is largely prevailing (68.14%), mainly represented by circum- Medit. (29.1 %) and Euro-Medit. (23.07 %). Endemics are 14.87% of the whole flora (141 taxa), …
Contribution to the identification of Dianthus rupicola (Caryophyllaceae) subspecies using morphological and molecular approaches
2017
The systematic relationships between the five different subspecies actually recognized within Dianthus rupicola (subsp. aeolicus , subsp. bocchorianus , subsp. hermaensis, subsp. lopadusanus and subsp. rupicola ), were assessed by means of morphometric and molecular analysis. Our results highlighted the molecular differences between the five subspecies of D. rupicola and a morphological differentiation of four groups being D. rupicola subsp. aeolicus and D. rupicola subsp. rupicola partly overlapping. At the present state of knowledge, a subspecific status seems the most appropriate for all the recognized subspecies of D. rupicola . The names D. aeolicus , D. bisignanii var. virescens , D. …
Rediscovery of Hieracium nebrodense (Asteraceae), a little-known endemic of Sicily (Italy)
2016
Hieracium nebrodense Tineo ex Lojac., a little-known endemic of Sicily, has been rediscovered from the type locality after almost two centuries since its first and only collection made in 1830 in the Madonie Mountains (N Sicily). In line with the treatment in ‘Med-Checklist 2’, it is reclassified as a subspecies of H. schmidtii. A new combination is made and a detailed description and illustration are provided.