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In this contribution, new data concerning algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the algal genera Chara and Nitella, the bryophyte genera Brachythecium, Didymodon, Fissidens, Physcomitrium, and Riccia, the fungal genera Biatoropsis, Cantharellus, Coprinellus, Dacrymyces, Inosperma, Nigropuncta, Urocystis, and Xanthoriicola, and the lichen genera Arthonia, Bellemerea, Circinaria, Lecania, Lecanora, Lecidella, Mycobilimbia, Naetrocymbe, Parmelia, Peltigera, Porpidia, Scytinium, and Usnea.

Cross-taxon congruence, i.e., using certain taxonomic groups as surrogates for others, is receiving growing interest since it may allow decreasing efforts in biodiversity studies. In this work, we investigated the patterns of cross-taxon congruence in species richness and composition between communities of bryophytes, lichens, and vascular plants in different biancana grasslands of a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) of central Italy. We recorded species presence and abundance in 16 plots of 1 × 1 m size and analyzed the data using Procrustes correlation, co-correspondence analysis, and indicator species analysis. We did not highlight any correlation in species richness and composition between the three taxonomic groups. Conversely, the species composition of bryophyte communities was predictive of the species composition of lichen communities. Moreover, lichen richness was negatively correlated with the total cover of vascular plants. Indicator species analysis evidenced the presence of species from the three biotic communities being particularly related, at least at the local scale, to biancana pediments, like the bryophytes Didymodon acutus and Trichostomum crispulum, the lichens Enchylium tenax, Cladonia foliacea, and Psora decipiens, and the vascular plants Brachypodium distachyon, Parapholis strigosa, and Artemisia caerulescens subsp. cretacea. In the biancana pediments, acrocarp mosses, squamulose lichens, therophyte plants and chamaephyte plants coexisted. In spite of the weak cross-taxon congruence between the three taxonomic groups, this study could highlight a locally unique diversity of bryophytes, lichens, and vascular plants related to the extreme environment of biancana pediments, selected by high soil salinity and deposition from the upper eroded slope. Soil erosion and deposition in biancana badlands supports the increase of local multi-taxonomic plant diversity by creating unique ecosystems. Such biodiversity should be considered locally at risk of disappearance, due to the ongoing vanishing of biancana badlands in central Italy.

In this study, we focused on the bedrock-dependent effects of climate change on terricolous lichen communities along elevational gradients in the Alps. In particular, we contrasted between carbonatic and siliceous bedrock, hypothesizing more favourable conditions on siliceous than on carbonatic bedrock, where dryer conditions may exacerbate the effects of climate change. To test this hypothesis, we compared terricolous lichen diversity patterns between the two bedrock types in terms of (1) species richness, (2) beta-diversity, (3) proportion of cryophilous species, and (4) functional diversity, also testing the effect of the elevational gradient as a proxy for expected climate warming. Our results indicate that the most cold-adapted part of the terricolus lichen biota of the Alps could be especially threatened in the near future, mainly on carbonatic bedrock. Actually, contrasting diversity patterns were found between carbonatic and siliceous bedrock, clearly revealing a bedrock-dependent effect of climate change on terricolous lichens of the Alps. As hypothesized, siliceous bedrock hosts a richer lichen biota than carbonatic bedrock, reflecting a general richness pattern at the national level. In general, siliceous bedrock seems to be less prone to rapid pauperization of its lichen biota, providing more suitable climatic refugia that can mitigate the effects of climate warming on terricolous lichens.

In this contribution, new data concerning bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the algal genus Chara, for the bryophyte genera Bryum, Grimmia, Cephaloziella, Hypnum, Nogopterium, Physcomitrium, Polytrichastrum, Rhynchostegiella, Saelania, and Schistostega, the fungal genera Cortinarius, Lentinellus, Omphalina, and Xerophorus, and the lichen genera Acarospora, Agonimia, Candelariella, Cladonia, Graphis, Gyalolechia, Hypogymnia, Lichinella, Megalaria, Nephroma, Ochrolechia, Opegrapha, Peltigera, Placidium, Ramalina, Rhizoplaca, Ropalospora, Strangospora, Toniniopsis, Usnea, and Zahlbrucknerella.

Lichens are poikilohydric organisms, whose internal water content tends to reflect external humidity conditions. After drying, they can reactivate their metabolic activity through water vapor uptake or liquid water input. Thus, lichen water-related functional traits are important as they are involved in the duration of the hydrated period. Models predicting the effect of environmental conditions on lichens are based mainly on the presence or absence of adult thalli. Nevertheless, ecological conditions required by lichens might vary during their life cycle, for example during propagule establishment or in the first stages of thallus development. Little is known about the different ecological requirements at the different development stages in lichens. In this work, we measured water holding capacity (WHC) and specific thallus mass (STM) of adult and juvenile thalli of the model species Lobaria pulmonaria along a climatic gradient to constrain the process-based model LiBry. The LiBry model allows accounting for the productivity of lichens with different physiological strategies under various environmental conditions. We simulated the activity and performance of adult and juvenile thalli in 9 regions of Italy and Corsica. The model was used to test if adult thalli of L. pulmonaria have a higher survival probability due to their higher aerodynamic resistance. In the current climatic condition, the LiBry model predicts a higher survival probability of adults with decreasing absolute survival rates of both life stages with increasing temperature. Adult thalli also result in having higher active time, STM, and relative growth rate (RGR). We discuss the main implications of our simulation outputs, provide future perspectives and possible implementations of the LiBry model.

In this contribution, new data concerning bryophytes, fungi, and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the bryophyte genera Aneura, Aulacomnium, Dumortiera, Fossombronia, Hennediella, Hygrohypnella, Pohlia, Porella, Riccardia, Tortella, and Tortula, the fungal genera Cortinarius, Mycena, Naucoria, Trichoglossum, and Tubaria and the lichen genera Agonimia, Blastenia, Chaenotheca, Cladonia, Endocarpon, Gyalecta, Lecanographa, Parmeliella, Porpidia, Stenhammarella, and Thelidium.

The botanical exploration of the Majella National Park has a long tradition dating back to the eighteenth century. However, the lichen biota of this area is still poorly investigated. To provide a baseline for future investigations, in this annotated checklist, we summarised all available information on the occurrence of lichens in the Majella National Park, retrieved from previous literature, herbarium material and original data produced by recent research. The checklist includes 342 infrageneric taxa. However, seven taxa are considered as dubious, thus setting the number of accepted taxa at 335, i.e. 45.8% of those currently known to occur in the Abruzzo Region. This checklist provides a baseline of the lichens known to occur in the Majella National Park, highlighting the potential of this area as a hotspot of lichen biodiversity, especially from a biogeographical point of view as indicated by the occurrence of several arctic-alpine species that form disjunct populations in the summit area of the massif.

Abstract We explored the influence of climatic factors on diversity patterns of multiple taxa (lichens, bryophytes, and vascular plants) along a steep elevational gradient to predict communities’ dynamics under future climate change scenarios in Mediterranean regions. We analysed (1) species richness patterns in terms of heat-adapted, intermediate, and cold-adapted species; (2) pairwise beta-diversity patterns, also accounting for its two different components, species replacement and richness difference; (3) the influence of climatic variables on species functional traits. Species richness is influenced by different factors between three taxonomic groups, while beta diversity differs mainly between plants and cryptogams. Functional traits are influenced by different factors in each taxonomic group. On the basis of our observations, poikilohydric cryptogams could be more impacted by climate change than vascular plants. However, contrasting species-climate and traits-climate relationships were also found between lichens and bryophytes suggesting that each group may be sensitive to different components of climate change. Our study supports the usefulness of a multi-taxon approach coupled with a species traits analysis to better unravel the response of terrestrial communities to climate change. This would be especially relevant for lichens and bryophytes, whose response to climate change is still poorly explored.

In this contribution, new data concerning red algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the algal genus Thorea, for the bryophyte genera Ephemerum, Hedwigia, Pogonatum, Riccia, Sphagnum, and Tortella, the fungal genera Pileolaria and Sporisorium, and the lichen genera Bacidia, Cerothallia, Chaenotheca, Cladonia, Halecania, Lecanora, Phylloblastia, Physcia, Protoparmelia, Pycnora, Segestria, and Sphaerophorus.

In this contribution, new data concerning bryophytes, fungi, and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the bryophyte genera Encalypta, Grimmia, and Riccia, for the fungal genera Hericium, Inocybe, Inocutis, Pluteus, and Russula, and for the lichen genera Bryoria, Farnoldia, Hypocenomyce, Lecania, Paracollema, Peltigera, Sarcogyne, and Teloschistes.

In this contribution, new data concerning algae, bryophytes, fungi, and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the algae genus Chara, the bryophyte genera Homalia, Mannia, and Tortella, the fungal genera Cortinarius, Russula, and Stereum, and the lichen genera Cetrelia, Cladonia, Enterographa, Graphis, Lecanora, Lepraria, Multiclavula, Mycomicrothelia, Parmelia, Peltigera, Pleopsidium, Psora, Scytinium, Umbilicaria, and Rhizocarpon.

In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of vascular flora alien to Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations, exclusions, and status changes for Italy or for Italian administrative regions of taxa in the genera Acalypha, Acer, Canna, Cardamine, Cedrus, Chlorophytum, Citrus, Cyperus, Epilobium, Eucalyptus, Euphorbia, Gamochaeta, Hesperocyparis, Heteranthera, Lemna, Ligustrum, Lycium, Nassella, Nothoscordum, Oenothera, Osteospermum, Paspalum, Pontederia, Romulea, Rudbeckia, Salvia, Sesbania, Setaria, Sicyos, Styphnolobium, Symphyotrichum, and Tradescantia. Nomenclature and distribution updates, published elsewhere, and corrigenda are provided as supplementary material.

In this contribution, new data concerning bryophytes, fungi, and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the bryophyte genera Diplophyllum and Ptychostomum, the fungal genera Arrhenia, Gymnosporangium, and Sporidesmium and the lichen genera Arthonia, Coenogonium, Flavoplaca, Gyalolechia, Parmotrema, Peltigera, Pterygiopsis, Squamarina, Tornabea, and Waynea.

Microclimatic conditions are important in determining lichen distribution at small scale, and may determine whether the species persist when the surrounding environmental conditions have drastically changed. This is the case with forest management, since a sudden variation of microclimatic conditions (increase of solar radiation, temperature, wind and a reduction of humidity) may occur after logging. In this study, the combined effect of forest logging and microclimatic conditions on the growth probabilities and growth rates of the model species Lobaria pulmonaria was assessed in mixed oak stands. To this purpose, 800 fragments of L. pulmonaria (L. pulmonaria populations in logged forests.

Community ecology has experienced a major transition, from a focus on patterns in taxonomic composition, to revealing the processes underlying community assembly through the analysis of species functional traits. The power of the functional trait approach is its generality, predictive capacity such as with respect to environmental change, and, through linkage of response and effect traits, the synthesis of community assembly with ecosystem function and services. Lichens are a potentially rich source of information about how traits govern community structure and function, thereby creating opportunity to better integrate lichens into ‘mainstream’ ecological studies, while lichen ecology and conservation can also benefit from using the trait approach as an investigative tool. This paper brings together a range of author perspectives to review the use of traits in lichenology, particularly with respect to European ecosystems from the Mediterranean to the Arctic-Alpine. It emphasizes the types of traits that lichenologists have used in their studies, both response and effect, the bundling of traits towards the evolution of life-history strategies, and the critical importance of scale (both spatial and temporal) in functional trait ecology.

Terricolous lichen communities in lowlands occur especially in open dry habitats. Such communities are often dominated by species of the genus Cladonia, which are very variable in morphology, reproduction strategies, and secondary metabolites. In this work, we investigated traits-environment relationships considering vegetation dynamics, substrate pH, disturbance, and climate. A total of 122 plots were surveyed in 41 acidic dry grasslands in the western Po Plain (Northern Italy). Relationships between Cladonia traits and environmental variables were investigated by means of a model-based Fourth Corner Analysis. Thallus morphology and metabolites responded to vegetation dynamics, substrate pH, disturbance, and climate, whereas reproduction strategies responded only to vegetation dynamics. Traits’ correlations with vegetation dynamics elucidate their colonization patterns in open dry habitats or suggest biotic interactions with bryophytes and vascular plants. In addition, correlations between metabolites and environmental factors support interpretations of their ecological roles. Our results also stress the importance of studying traits’ relationships with climatic factors as an alert towards lichen reactions to climate change.

The interpretation of lichen bioaccumulation data is of paramount importance in environmental forensics and decision-making processes. By implementing basic ideas underlying previous interpretative scales, new dimensionless, species-independent “bioaccumulation scales” for native and transplanted lichens are proposed. Methodologically consistent element concentration datasets were populated with data from biomonitoring studies relying on native and transplanted lichens. The scale for native lichens was built up by analyzing the distribution of ratios between element concentration data and species-specific background concentration references (B ratios), herein provided for Flavoparmelia caperata and Xanthoria parietina (foliose lichens). The scale for transplants was built up by analyzing the distribution of ratios between element concentration in exposed and unexposed samples (EU ratio) of Evernia prunastri and Pseudevernia furfuracea (fruticose lichens). Both scales consist of five percentile-based classes; namely, “Absence of”, “Low”, “Moderate”, “High”, and “Severe” bioaccumulation. A comparative analysis of extant interpretative tools showed that previous ones for native lichens suffered from the obsolescence of source data, whereas the previous expert-assessed scale for transplants failed in describing noticeable element concentration variations. The new scales, based on the concept that pollution can be quantified by dimensionless ratios between experimental and benchmark values, overcome most critical points affecting the previous scales.