Italian endemics: a focus on vascular flora Passalacqua N.G., Bartolucci F., Domina G., Galasso G. & Peruzzi L.

…starting point from the initiative “Taxa di piante vascolari descritti per l'Italia: censimento, tipificazione ed approfondimenti biosistematici”, also called “Italian Loci Classici Census” Gruppo per la Floristica, Società Botanica Italiana, 2010

Working group 35 Researchers (5 Supervisors) 23 Institutions 17 Universities 4 Museums 2 Regional Centers

Italian endemics – 2014 starting list 1371 Italian endemics (ca. 18%) including those shared with Corsica and Malta, not considering the subspecies within the critical genera Hieracium and Pilosella. Since 2005, we had an increase of 343 endemics, mainly due to: -description of taxa new to science: 226 -taxonomic revisions: 117 Peruzzi et al., 2014 1371 (18%) 7550 Conti et al., 2005 1024 (15%) 6952

Orders, Families and Genera Lycopodiidae: 3 Polypodiidae: 1 Pinidae: 2 Magnoliidae: 1361 (paleoherbs: 3; monocots: 222; dicots: 1139) 303 genera, 67 families and 29 orders

Seven genera are endemic to Italy Rhizobotrya alpina Castroviejoa frigida Eokochia saxicola Morisia monanthos Nananthea perpusilla Siculosciadium nebrodense Petagnaea gussonei

Italian endemics at regional level Regional endemics 14 10 5 22 15 19 5 13 59 13 44 12 20 32 6 181 60 Alpine endemics are often shared by different European countries, so that were not recorded in the database. 263

Italian endemics at regional level 73 29 10 71 68 52 74 65 189 126 102 226 190 124 137 176 190 319 271 ca. 58% of the taxa (792) are narrow endemic, whose occurrence is restricted to just one region, and more than half of them is restricted to Sardinia and Sicily 402

NW Italy: 58 N Italian peninsula: 214 NE Italy: 145 Crocus etruscus C Italian peninsula: 299 Campanula bertolae Xerolekia speciosissima S Italian peninsula: 387 Primula palinuri Adonis distorta Sardinia: 319 Sicily: 402 Linaria arcusangeli Ptilostemon greuteri

Year of first descritption for currently accepted Italian endemic taxa Most “descriptive” years (> 19 taxa): 2009 (51) 2011 (42) 1827 (32) 1826 (30) 2001 (30) 2006 (26) 2007 (25) 2012 (24) 1904 (22) 2013 (22) 1822 (21) 1843 (21) 1980 (20) 1986 (20) 2010 (20) Peruzzi et al. 2014b Year of first descritption for currently accepted Italian endemic taxa Italian Independence War First and second World Wars

2013 (1371) 2005 (1155) 1982 (897) 1928-1964 1900 (622) 1810 (69) 1753 (18)

The Loci Classici Italian database Natura 104(1):33-38 (2014) The Loci Classici Italian database

The Loci Classici Italian database

The Loci Classici Italian database

Loci classici: why? These localities represent a very important cultural and historical heritage, being places visited, studied or described by relevant personalities in the history of botany and plant biology in general; For many types of biosystematics studies, living specimens and samples from real populations are required, and specimens in topotypical localities ensure that the results obtained will certainly apply to a certain taxon and will be taxonomically sound.

Italian endemics: updating 2014 1371 endemics 2015 1400 endemics 50 new entries 21 removed: 13 not Italian endemics 5 synonyms of other taxa 4 not occurring in Italy 14 name changed Peruzzi et al. 2015

Loci classici - distribution Brundu et al. (submitted) Loci classici - distribution As expected, a large proportion of loci classici are on islands; We detected a clear negative correlation between the distribution of loci classici and the distance from the coastline, i.e. many locations are located in coastal habitats; However, a large number of loci classici is concentrated in mountain areas (690 loci are above 1000 m a.s.l.). 966 loci 841 loci

Loci classici - conservation 1,185 locations (out of 1,807) are inside protected areas: 347 Sites of Community Importance 329 National Parks 321 Regional / Provincial Nature Parks Alpi Apuane 106 Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga 43 621 are located outside protected areas, in many cases very close to protected areas. Pollino 47

Perspectives – continuous updating 2015 1400 endemics 2016 1435 endemics 51 new entries 16 removed: 6 not Italian endemics 10 synonyms of other taxa 16 name changed Peruzzi et al. 2014, continuously updated

Perspectives – Typification of the names

Perspectives

A number of scientific publications are being stimulated in parallel and after this collective work:

Perspectives New checklist of the Italian Flora (2017) Red List assessment of the Italian endemics (2017) Deeper biosystematic investigations of selected critical groups (work in progress) Loci of all taxa described for the Italian territory (?) Phytogeographical regionalisation of Italy based on comparative endemics distribution (?)

Thanks a lot for your kind attention!