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Woody species composition of chestnut stands in the Northern Apennines: the result of 200 years of changes in land use

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Abstract

Chestnut stands (orchards and coppices) are among the most typical elements of the southern European mountain landscape and a protected habitat (9260 Castanea sativa woods) according to the European Union (Directive 92/43/EEC). As an anthropogenic landscape, they require specific measures to address preservation or to guide their evolutionary trend. In the Northern Apennines, a landscape multiscalar-multitemporal approach was adopted to highlight factors that have acted on the evolution of this habitat and which still might affect either its preservation or its evolutionary dynamics. Using a diachronic GIS-approach, we analyzed old cadastral maps (drawn up 200 years ago), and aerial photographs. Both the present distribution pattern of the woody species and the incidence of important chestnut diseases were also surveyed. The factors explaining the current extent and species composition of the local chestnut forests confirm their status as an anthropogenic habitat. The present landscape distribution of chestnut woods is heavily linked to past human settlements. Chestnut blight and ink disease are more an indirect reason for past felling activities than an actual direct cause of damage to trees, because of the hypovirulence spread and the limited incidence of the ink disease. Vegetation dynamics of abandoned chestnut forests evolved only partly towards deciduous Beech and Hop Hornbeam stands, thus suggesting both the possibility of a recovery of this cultivation and the need for new criteria for its management.

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Abbreviations

SCI:

Site of Community Importance

DBH:

Diameter Breast Height

NMDS:

Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling

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Acknowledgments

We are particularly grateful to Prof. Alessandro Chiarucci (Siena University), who kindly provided useful suggestions for samplings. Many thanks are due to the management of the Montovolo Provincial Park and to the Municipality of Grizzana Morandi. We thank all the students who helped us in both sampling and producing thematic maps, especially Marcello Bazzocchi, Laura Bordò, and Sara Masi. This research was funded by Servizio Pianificazione Paesistica of the Province of Bologna (Dir. Arch. Paola Altobelli), through an agreement with the Experimental Evolutionary Biology Department (chief. Prof. Carlo Ferrari) to create a census of protected Habitats in the SCIs within the Province of Bologna.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental Evolutionary Biology, University of Bologna, Via Irnerio 42, 40126, Bologna, Italy

    Giovanna Pezzi & Carlo Ferrari

  2. FEM-IASMA – Centre for Technology Transfer, Via E. Mach, 1, 38010, San Michele all’Adige (TN), Italy

    Giorgio Maresi

  3. WSL Swiss Federal Research Institute, Via Belsoggiorno 22, 6500, Bellinzona-Ravecchia, Switzerland

    Marco Conedera

Authors
  1. Giovanna Pezzi
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  2. Giorgio Maresi
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  3. Marco Conedera
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  4. Carlo Ferrari
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Correspondence to Giovanna Pezzi.

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Nomenclature

Conti et al. (2005): for higher plants.

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Pezzi, G., Maresi, G., Conedera, M. et al. Woody species composition of chestnut stands in the Northern Apennines: the result of 200 years of changes in land use. Landscape Ecol 26, 1463–1476 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-011-9661-8

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