Agricultural Landscapes and Biodiversity Conservation in Italy.

In the last decades, agricultural areas have been acknowledged as important areas for biodiversity conservation and provision of ecosystem services. Several international and national Conventions have promoted the development of multifunctional agriculture and the maintenance of traditional cultural landscapes. In this general context, this paper presents some relevant research experiences carried out in Italy at different spatial scales, from national to local (Province and Municipality of Rome). The results of these studies confirm that traditional agricultural areas support the conservation of habitats and species of national and European interest and represent important elements for environmental quality at the landscape scale. Moreover, they highlight the importance of taking into account the biophysical environment, together with historical and cultural features, for mapping and charactering traditional agricultural landscapes, as well as the need to focus on the dynamics of agricultural land, which is threatened by land cover change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]