The contribution of forest restoration to the conservation of woody endangered species in Sicily

Sicilian forest ecosystems are, in general, numerically poor in terms of their floristic composition. As many studies on Sicilian dendroflora have highlighted, such poorness is not intrinsic to forest formations, but it is due to the millenary human pressures. Repeated passage of fire, continuous wood usage and reforestations by single or few species dra- matically reduced the plant biodiversity of Sicilian forest ecosystems, often suffering of monodominance. The Sicilian dendroflora includes several endangered species, such as Abies nebrodensis, Betula aetnensis, Celtis tournefortii subsp. asperrima and subsp. aetnensis, as the wild pears, which in Sicily are represented by 4 endemic species, in addition to the commonly known Pyrus spinosa and P. pyraster. Similarly, the genus Salix counts 8 different species instead of the given 4. Thus, higher attention toward all these taxa, which strongly improve the forest heritage of specific areas, is needed. Throughout their knowledge, survey, propagation and extensive use, the risk of local and general biodiversity loss can be limited. These actions necessarily require a targeted nursery program aimed to produce plantlets with high genetic variability starting from local propagation material.