The Impact of Climate, Resource Availability, Natural Disturbances and Human Subsistence Strategies on Sicilian Landscape Dynamics During the Holocene

Pasta, Salvatore; D’Amore, Giuseppe; Maggio, Cipriano Di; Pasquale, Gaetano Di; Forgia, Vincenza; Incarbona, Alessandro; Madonia, Giuliana; Morales‐Molino, César; Rotolo, Silvio G.; Sìneo, Luca; Speciale, Claudia; Sulli, Attilio; Tinner, Willy; Vacchi, Matteo

doi:10.2307/j.ctv30pntvk.4

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The availability of obsidian, a precious raw material for ancient human communities and the strategic position on prehistoric trade routes triggered the early human colonisation of the Aeolian Archipelago since Neolithic times (about 7500 years ago, see Pasta et al, in press). Nowadays, the archipelago bases its economy almost exclusively on seasonal tourism.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Species–area relationship and small‐island effect of vascular plant diversity in a young volcanic archipelago

Chiarucci

Guarino

Pasta

et al. 2021

Journal of Biogeography

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Aims Aeolian islands form an active volcanic archipelago. By using updated vascular plant checklists for islands and islets, we tested four hypotheses: (i) Island species–area relationship (ISAR) of alien species has lower c‐ and higher z‐values than native species, (ii) islands with active volcanoes have lower species richness than expected for native and alien species, (iii) ISAR of native species shows lower c‐ and higher z‐values than ISARs of Mediterranean land bridge archipelagos and (iv) species richness of smaller islets is independent of area. Location Aeolian Archipelago, Mediterranean Basin. Taxon Vascular plants, identified and named according to the Flora of Italy (Pignatti et al., 2017–2019). Methods Checklists of native and alien plant species were obtained for eight islands and 24 islets. ISARs were fitted by the Arrhenius power function (S=c·Az) and used to test the first two hypotheses. The third hypothesis was tested by comparing ISAR of Aeolian Archipelago to those from other central and eastern Mediterranean archipelagos. The fourth hypothesis was tested by fitting models defining the presence and limit of the small‐island effect. Results The checklists included 894 species—749 native and 145 alien. ISARs fitted well for native and alien species and resulted in typical values of c and z parameters. The first and second hypotheses were supported by model fitting. The third hypothesis was not confirmed by the comparison of the ISAR of the Aeolian Archipelago with other archipelagos. The small‐island effect predicted by the fourth hypothesis was supported using S versus LogA for both native and alien species, while for native species it was supported also using the log transformation of the Arrhenius model. Main conclusions We reported a first comprehensive analysis of plant species richness in the unique Aeolian Archipelago, verifying typical ISARs, no peculiarity with respect to land bridge archipelagos and a somewhat unclear signal for the small‐island effect.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Species–area relationship and small‐island effect of vascular plant diversity in a young volcanic archipelago

Chiarucci

Guarino

Pasta

et al. 2021

Journal of Biogeography

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“…Finally, a hypothetical very ancient origin of P. greuteri is not supported by current knowledge on the palaeogeography of the island, since Sicily started its final emersion only 5 million years ago (Pasta et al, 2022). Also, the genetic analyses presented by Vilatersana et al (2010) show that P. greuteri is not the most basal/ancient/isolated species within the genus.…”

Section: Woodiness Gigantism and Other "Insular" Traitsmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…As a rule, during the interglacial optima, macro-and mesoclimatic conditions may have favoured the spread of many woody species and the recovery of entire forest ecosystems (e.g., Nieto Feliner, 2011). Nonetheless, increasing evidence points out that particularly favourable microclimatic and micro-topographic conditions have played a major role, allowing many climate relicts to overcome glacial events "hiding" in microrefugia in the Mediterranean Basin (Cheddadi and Bennett, 2020;Garfì et al, 2021b;Médail and Diadema, 2009;Pasta et al, 2022). Though a chasmophytic syndrome has been observed in both P. greuteri populations (Gianguzzi et al, 2022), the fact that the largest plants are mostly concentrated in the valley bottom, especially in POP2, corroborates the assumption that localised micro-environmental conditions are crucial to support plant growth and long-term persistence against the surrounding adverse climate.…”

Section: Macroclimate and Microrefugiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation of Ptilostemon greuteri (Asteraceae), an endemic climate relict from Sicily (Italy): State of knowledge after the discovery of a second population

Pasta

Gristina

Scuderi³

et al. 2022

Global Ecology and Conservation

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Sicily and the process of Neolithisation: a review of the archaeobotanical data

Speciale

2023

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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This review paper analyses the first steps of the spread of domestic plants into Sicily. Despite being the biggest island of the Mediterranean and its central position, the process of arrival and diffusion of crops in Sicily is still poorly understood. Starting from the limited but significant record from Grotta dell’Uzzo, the plant macrofossil data are presented and discussed with some comparison with the pollen, zooarchaeological and obsidian data. The closest regions to Sicily, from where these domesticates may have come, are discussed. The arrival of domesticated plants in Sicily fits perfectly with the model of dispersal by sea. The introduction of crops was a slow process that covered the whole of the Neolithic period. The intention is to raise interest in this field and to inspire researchers to analyse more plant macro- and micro-remains from prehistoric archaeological contexts in Sicily.

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The Impact of Climate, Resource Availability, Natural Disturbances and Human Subsistence Strategies on Sicilian Landscape Dynamics During the Holocene

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Species–area relationship and small‐island effect of vascular plant diversity in a young volcanic archipelago

Species–area relationship and small‐island effect of vascular plant diversity in a young volcanic archipelago

Conservation of Ptilostemon greuteri (Asteraceae), an endemic climate relict from Sicily (Italy): State of knowledge after the discovery of a second population

Sicily and the process of Neolithisation: a review of the archaeobotanical data

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