Towards the identification of species-specific monitoring protocol for the Italian flora of Community interest

The ongoing activities for the identification of monitoring methods for the Italian flora of Community interest (FCI) are presented. The reference framework is the Directive 92/43/EEC. Monitoring is an obligation arising from Art. 11 and the results have to be reported every six years, according to Art. 17. In the last Italian National Report, covering the period 2007-2012, the status of the FCI was assessed using available knowledge and expert judgment, still revealing relevant lack of data for some plant species and, in turn, population parameters (Ercole and Giacanelli, 2014). To overcome these deficiencies, in 2015 began a project aims to set future monitoring activities and to optimize efforts at national scale. A network of institutions (Ministry of the Environment, Regions), research institutes (ISPRA) and scientific societies (SBI for flora) has been organized. Main objective of this project, to be reached by the end of 2016, is the identification of shared monitoring protocols for the FCI. For plant species ISPRA and SBI are engaged in the drafting of species-specific monitoring methodologies and schemes, based on the updated scientific knowledge and responsive to the EC requests. A working group made up of 12 units (10 groups for vascular and two for non-vascular plants) distributed throughout the country have been established. The monitoring protocols for each plant species (109 vascular taxa, 10 bryophytes, one lichen) have been developed and tested in the field for 12 target plant species, identified according to representativeness criteria for: life forms, phenology, ecology and biogeography. These shared protocols should lead to overcoming some current problems related to data heterogeneity and discrepancies from the EC requests and would allow greater repeatability and comparability over time. The results will be available in a dedicated website and in a National Manual for FCI, which will be published by ISPRA together with the manuals for fauna and habitats.