Italy has a rich natural heritage, which is dangerously under pressure. In recent years, there is an increased awareness of the crucial role of plants in ecosystem functioning and in providing ecosystem services. Consequently, an updated Red List of the Italian vascular flora was compiled in this work, at the request of the Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea Protection, with the scientific support of the Italian Botanical Society. The IUCN Red List criteria were applied to 2,430 Italian native vascular plant taxa to assess their current extinction risk and to highlight the major threats affecting the Italian flora. Our results revealed that 54 taxa (2.2% of the assessed taxa) are extinct or possibly extinct at regional level, while 590 taxa (24.3%) were assigned to a risk category. Moreover, 404 taxa (16.6%) were categorized as Data Deficient. The Italian vascular flora is primarily threatened by habitat modifications due to anthropic disturbance and, especially, to agriculture, tourism and residential development. Coastal areas and lowlands, where anthropogenic impacts and ecosystem destruction are more pronounced, host the greatest number of extinct or declining taxa. Our results represent an important baseline to establish conservation priorities, legislative choices and intervention strategies on a national scale.

In situ conservation is widely considered a primary conservation strategy. Plant translocation, specifically, represents an important tool for reducing the extinction risk of threatened species. However, thus far, few documented translocations have been carried out in the Mediterranean islands. The Care-Mediflora project, carried out on six Mediterranean islands, tackles both short- and long-term needs for the insular endangered plants through in situ and ex situ conservation actions. The project approach is based on using ex situ activities as a tool to improve in situ conservation of threatened plant species. Fifty island plants (representing 45 taxa) were selected for translocations using common criteria. During the translocations, several approaches were used, which differed in site selection method, origin of genetic material, type of propagative material, planting method, and more. Although only preliminary data are available, some general lessons can be learned from the experience of the Care-Mediflora project. Among the factors restricting the implementation of translocations, limited financial resources appear to be the most important. Specific preliminary management actions, sometimes to be reiterated after translocation, increase the overall cost, but often are necessary for translocation success. Translocation using juvenile/reproductive plants produces better results over the short term, although seeds may provide good results over the long run (to be assessed in the future). Regardless, plant translocation success can only be detected over long periods; therefore, proper evaluation of plant translocations requires a long-term monitoring protocol. Care-Mediflora project represents the first attempt to combine the existing approaches in a common plant conservation strategy specifically focusing on the Mediterranean islands.

Coastal dune environments are selective ecosystems characterized by a close interaction between abiotic and biotic factors in\ud a dynamic balance. The present study focused on the psammophilous geosigmetum, the most affected by the interactions\ud between physical processes and biological and anthropic processes. The main purpose was to study the relationships between\ud the abiotic properties of the dune and the presence of the various plant communities, combining morpho-sedimentological,\ud geopedological, and geobotanical data. The study was carried out on the well-preserved dune system of Is Arenas (CW\ud Sardinia) which is one of the most important in the Mediterranean area. The analyses revealed differences at the\ud morphodynamic, sedimentological, and geopedological levels. The micro-topography of the dunes affects the values of the\ud main abiotic variables, and determines the presence of various microhabitats of great heterogeneity. This work shows that\ud the data on the geomorphological dynamics and the chemical–physical processes, correlated with the geobotanical analyses,\ud might make it possible to identify the ecosystemic processes, and thereby plan adequate management and conservation\ud strategies for this coastal dune system

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