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Pilularia Minuta Durieu (Marsileaceae) Discovered in South-Eastern-Sicily: New Insights on Its Ecology, Distribution and Conservation Status

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Pilularia Minuta Durieu (Marsileaceae) Discovered in South-Eastern-Sicily: New Insights on Its Ecology, Distribution and Conservation Status Botany Letters ISSN: 2381-8107 (Print) 2381-8115 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tabg21 Pilularia minuta Durieu (Marsileaceae) discovered in south-eastern-Sicily: new insights on its ecology, distribution and conservation status Pietro Minissale , José Antonio Molina & Saverio Sciandrello To cite this article: Pietro Minissale , José Antonio Molina & Saverio Sciandrello (2017): Pilularia minuta Durieu (Marsileaceae) discovered in south-eastern-Sicily: new insights on its ecology, distribution and conservation status, Botany Letters To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23818107.2017.1357051 Published online: 07 Aug 2017. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tabg21 Download by: [University of Catania] Date: 07 August 2017, At: 05:12 BOTANY LETTERS, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1080/23818107.2017.1357051 Pilularia minuta Durieu (Marsileaceae) discovered in south-eastern-Sicily: new insights on its ecology, distribution and conservation status Pietro Minissalea , José Antonio Molinab and Saverio Sciandrelloc aDepartment of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, Italy; bDepartment of Plant Biology II, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain; cCentre for the Conservation and Management of Nature and Agroecosystems (CUTGANA), University of Catania, Catania, Italy ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Pilularia minuta Durieu (Marsileaceae) is a rare and endangered Mediterranean species of Received 11 March 2017 temporary ponds. It occurs in different countries all around the Mediterranean Basin with a Accepted 13 July 2017 scattered distribution. In Italy, this species is known for Sardinia, Apulia and recently for western KEYWORDS Sicily. During a field investigation, the species was found in the Hyblaean Plateau (south- Distribution; endangered eastern Sicily). The aim of this work is to analyze the ecological features and conservation status species; Isoeto-Nanojuncetea; of P. minuta populations occurring in Sicily. The floristic composition of Pilularia minuta plant Mediterranean temporary communities were determined using the standard relevé method. Three spatially differentiated ponds; wetlands; Pilularia belts with specific floristic compositions emerged from the numerical analysis (UPGMA method, minuta Euclidean distance coefficient) and from canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), mainly correlated to the water level. Our results showed that temporary ponds mainly host amphibian vegetation belonging to the phytosociological class Isoëto-Nanojuncetea, which includes pioneering annual plant communities growing on periodically flooded soils. Most species belong to the Mediterranean element, with therophytes as the dominant life form. The floristic richness and diversity index of these plant communities increased from the inner belt towards the upper belt. Finally, a synthesis of all known localities of Pilularia minuta from the Mediterranean area is given, together with a new assessment of the risk status for Sicily and Italy. Introduction Calatafimi (Trapani). In the framework of researches on the plant communities of the temporary ponds, car- Pilularia minuta Durieu (Marsileaceae) is a steno-Medi- ried out in protected areas or SCIs (Sites of Community terranean endemic (Rhazi, Grillas, and Rhazi 2010) and Importance) of SE Sicily (Minissale and Sciandrello one of the most emblematic species of Mediterranean 2016; Sciandrello et al. 2016), two new populations temporary ponds. It is known from several countries of Pilularia minuta were discovered in April 2015 and around the Mediterranean Basin (Christenhusz and March 2016 in the Hyblaean Plateau (Figure 1), in some Raab-Straube 2013). Its range is quite discontinuous. Up ponds on regularly inundated volcanic soils. The first one to now, it is found in Portugal (Algarve), Spain (Huelva, is located at Cozzo Fico, south of Mount Pancali (near Zamora, La Mancha and Menorca provinces (ANTHOS Downloaded by [University of Catania] at 05:12 07 August 2017 Carlentini) at 360 m above sea level (a.s.l.) (2 ponds); the 2012)), southern France, Corsica, Greece, western and second one was found at Cozzo Ogliastri (near Sortino), northern Aegean islands, Cyprus, Croatia (Dalmatian at 385 m a.s.l. (10 ponds). The population discovered by coast) and Turkey (Izmir). It also occurs in Maghreb, e.g. Troia and Lansdown (2016) is about 200 km from the Morocco, Algeria, and recently it was found in Tunisia Hyblaean populations at about 200 m a.s.l., on siliceous (Daoud-Bouattour et al. 2009). soils derived from sedimentary rocks. In Italy, Pilularia minuta presence has been con- Pilularia minuta is considered an endangered spe- firmed for Sardinia and Apulia (Beccarisi, Ernandes, cies of the Mediterranean Region (Rhazi, Grillas, and and Zuccarello 2009; Bagella and Caria 2012; Mascia Rhazi 2010). Moreover, it is reported by the European et al. 2013). Its presence in Sicily was reported the first Red List of Vascular Plants with the same conservation time by Nicotra (1893) from Trapani but it was based status (Bilz et al. 2011). It is also in Annex I of Berne on a misidentification of his specimens (Troia and Convention (Council of Europe 1979). However, there Lansdown 2016). is still poor information about the habitat of P. minuta Recently, a small population of Pilularia minuta (Desfayes 2008; Silva, Pinto-Cruz, and Espírito-Sant was found in Sicily (Troia and Lansdown 2016), near 2008; Garcia Cardo 2011; Ernandes and Marchiori 2013; CONTACT Pietro Minissale [email protected] © 2017 Société botanique de France .P. MINISSALE ET AL 2 Figure 1. Current known distribution of Pilularia minuta in Sicily (little dots). In grey is highlighted Syracuse province. Source: Authors. Daoud-Bouattour et al. 2014), and the synecology of wood, where cows sustain the grassland which is the the small pillwort communities (Braun-Blanquet 1935; main matrix vegetation. Furthermore, Pyrus spinosa Paradis and Finidori 2005; Daoud-Bouattour et al. 2009). Forssk. and Sarcopoterium spinosum (L.) Spach are the The main objectives of this research are to: (1) provide most frequent shrubs. data about the habitat where P. minuta occurs in Sicily; Regarding conservation measures Cozzo Ogliastri is (2) analyze the floristic composition and some ecological a Site of Community Importance (ITA0900023 Cozzo parameters of the amphibian plant communities related Ogliastri), according to the European directive 92/43 to P. minuta; (3) evaluate the species diversity and define EEC. This area is well known for the occurrence of spatial patterns; (4) update the small pillwort distribu- Zelkova sicula Di Pasquale, Garfì and Quézel, a critically Downloaded by [University of Catania] at 05:12 07 August 2017 tion (5) re-evaluate its conservation status at regional endangered narrow endemic species involved in special (Sicily) and national (Italy) scales. conservation measures (Garfì et al. 2011). Material and Methods Methods Study area Our study was based on field surveys, as well as on the The surveyed territory, the northern part of the Hyblaean review of literature and herbarium specimens (Appendix Plateau, is flat, with Tertiary volcanic substrates, span- 1). For the risk assessment at the regional scale, the ning in age between 3 and 1.5 million years BP (Carbone IUCN protocol (IUCN 2001) was followed according 2011; De Beni et al. 2011). According to the bioclimatic to the most recent guidelines for its application (IUCN classification proposed by Rivas-Martinez (1993) and 2014). In particular, the IUCN criterion (B) was applied Rivas-Martínez, Penas, and Diaz (2004), the study area by estimating trends in the Area of Occupancy (AOO) is characterized by the lower mesomediterranean ther- using a 2 × 2 km2 grid (IUCN 2014). motype and lower dry ombrotypes (Bazan et al. 2015). In order to analyze the structure and floristic com- The average annual rainfalls and temperatures from position of the P. minuta populations during the period the closest thermo-pluviometric stations are: Cozzo from 2015 to 2016, 12 temporary ponds were desig- Fico-M. Pancali (717 mm, 17.5 °C, Carlentini); and nated (with presence of P. minuta) and 23 plots were Cozzo Ogliastri (916 mm, 16.1 °C, Sortino). Overall, sampled (Appendix 2), using vegetation transect for the plant landscape is a cork oak (Quercus suber L.) open each pond. Transects were laid perpendicular to the BOTANY LETTERS 3 margin of each ponds. Each transect consists of contig- Giardina, Raimondo, and Spadaro (2007); the life form uous 40 × 40 cm2, in which the floristic data was noted. of each taxon is taken from Pignatti (1982), while the Transect length varied from 40 cm to 80 cm, depend- chorological types are adapted from Brullo, Grillo, ing on the spatial extension of the hydro-hygrophilous and Guglielmo (1998). The syntaxonomical scheme plant communities observed. The floristic composition of the vegetation units follows Biondi et al. (2014) and cover of species in each plot were determined by (Appendix 3). using a scale from 0% to 100%. Numerical analysis (Cluster Analysis – UPGMA method, Euclidean dis- tance coefficient) of plots/relevés was performed using Results and discussion the software package SYN-TAX 2000 (Podani 2001). Pilularia minuta in the zonation of the temporary Environmental gradients and plant communities were ponds examined with
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