Editorial |
Corresponding author: Maria Grazia Mazzocchi ( grazia.mazzocchi@szn.it ) Academic editor: Klaus Henle
© 2019 Maria Grazia Mazzocchi, Lucilla Capotondi, Michele Freppaz, Antonella Lugliè, Alessandro Campanaro.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Mazzocchi MG, Capotondi L, Freppaz M, Lugliè A, Campanaro A (2019) Editorial. In: Mazzocchi MG, Capotondi L, Freppaz M, Lugliè A, Campanaro A (Eds) Italian Long-Term Ecological Research for understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning. Case studies from aquatic, terrestrial and transitional domains. Nature Conservation 34: 1-8. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.34.35517
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The Long-Term time series of Ecological Research (LTER) allow us to follow the evolution of the ecosystems over decadal scales to understand the driving processes behind their temporal variability in relation to local and global stressors.
LTER-Italy (http://www.lteritalia.it) network includes terrestrial, freshwater, transitional and marine sites where ecological research is regularly carried out on decadal scale with the involvement of numerous universities, scientific and technical institutions, as well as local authorities. Since 2006, LTER-Italy is part of LTER-Europe (http://www.lter-europe.net) and LTER-International (https://www.ilter.network) networks. LTER-Italy consists of 79 research sites belonging to 25 different areas (parent sites) distributed throughout the Country and also including extra-national sites in the Ross Sea (Antarctica) and in the Himalayas (Nepal).
The present Special Issue entitled “Italian Long-Term Ecological Research for understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning. Case studies from aquatic, terrestrial and transitional domains” is the first published collection of studies performed at LTER-Italy sites which address the diversity and dynamics of ecosystems in different domains in response to natural and anthropogenic forcing. Eighteen papers in the volume present research carried out at 2 Antarctic and 16 Italian sites, one of which includes a comparative analysis with other International LTER sites in Northern Europe and USA (Figure
Localisation of the LTER sites covered in this Special Issue. In the large panel, the Italian sites: terrestrial (brown), freshwater (light blue), transitional (green), marine (blue). In the inset: A Italy B Northern Europe C California (USA) D Ross Sea (Antarctica).
List of the LTER sites covered in the papers of this Special Issue, with their names, DEIMS.ID (https://deims.org/docs/deimsid.html) and references, in the same order as they appear in the Index.
LTER site name | DEIMS-ID | Special Issue reference papers |
Appennino centrale: Gran Sasso d’Italia, Italy | https://deims.org/c0738b00-854c-418f-8d4f-69b03486e9fd |
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Val Masino LOM1, Italy | https://deims.org/68a5673c-9172-48cc-88e5-b9408b203309 |
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Istituto Scientifico Angelo Mosso (MOSSO), Italy | https://deims.org/17210eba-d832-4759-89fa-9ff127cbdf6e |
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Gran Paradiso National Park, Italy | https://deims.org/e33c983a-19ad-4f40-a6fd-1210ee0b3a4b |
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IT25 – Val Mazia/Matschertal, Italy | https://deims.org/11696de6-0ab9-4c94-a06b-7ce40f56c964 |
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Foce Trigno-Marina di Petacciato (Campobasso), Italy | https://deims.org/1835cda2-b56d-400a-b413-ab5c74086dc5 |
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Foce Saccione-Bonifica Ramitelli (Campobasso), Italy | https://deims.org/088fe3af-c5bb-4cc8-b479-fe1ea6d5be80 |
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Montagna di Torricchio, Italy | https://deims.org/6b62feb2-61bf-47e1-b97f-0e909c408db8 |
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Lago Bidighinzu, Italy | https://deims.org/3707cf71-7e04-41e3-8afc-518b293f6c07 |
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Laguna di Venezia, Italy | https://deims.org/f7d94927-17be-4d3d-9810-e3c9bc91829c |
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Mar Piccolo of Taranto, Italy | https://deims.org/ede24c6e-9cf2-4cf8-8bf7-36ba327403b4 |
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Sacca di Goro, Italy | https://deims.org/b7869194-b220-473a-b035-feeadfa21aba |
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Valli di Comacchio, Italy | https://deims.org/70e1bc05-a03d-40fc-993d-0c61e524b177 |
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LTER Marechiara, Italy | https://deims.org/0b87459a-da3c-45af-a3e1-cb1508519411 |
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Santa Barbara Coastal LTER, United States of America | https://deims.org/dbd399ed-9c26-4621-b479-7ab505c8aa35 |
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Archipelago Research Institute, Finland (Seili LTER) | https://deims.org/9d4222a2-c50f-4fac-8b1d-3b685072b34d |
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North Sea Benthos Observatory, Germany | https://deims.org/50946250-c0fa-41b0-a917-17d2a3992eee |
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Golfo di Olbia, Italy | https://deims.org/3178d0fb-0789-4992-9c51-1ddb50b7e871 |
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LTER Observatory HAUSGARTEN, Germany | https://deims.org/f6d9ed12-6bc1-47fb-8e81-ef24e9579596 |
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Golfo di Trieste, Italy | https://deims.org/96969205-cfdf-41d8-979f-ff881ea8dc8b |
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Mooring A: Southwestern Ross Sea, Ross Island, Antarctica | https://deims.org/86b6465c-b604-4efa-9145-0805f62216f4 |
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Mooring B: North Central Ross Sea, Joides Basin, Antarctica | https://deims.org/1fb62b9c-4d5c-4f1f-8882-807032337de7 |
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The studies focus on terrestrial (7 papers) and aquatic (11) domains, the latter including marine (7), transitional (3) and freshwater (1) ecosystems. The research sites span over a wide altitudinal range, from the mesopelagic ocean (-800 m) to the high-elevation mountain (2.800 m) and reflect the large diversity of the Italian territory and landscapes. The papers cover a broad range of topics, from biodiversity to biogeochemical fluxes, over time scales up to three decades. The different environments, organisms and processes are analysed with the common goal to discern the main modes of temporal variability and to understand the causes of the observed modifications. The heterogeneity of the presented research activities mirrors the variety of ecological issues that need to be addressed to achieve proper environmental conservation and management practices.
For the terrestrial environment, papers in this Special Issue investigate the effects of climate variability and habitat use on the biological and biogeochemical components of ecosystems from the sea-level coasts to the peaks of the Alps in a variety of habitat types, such as forests, grasslands and dunes. Amongst the “sentinels” of environmental changes, the readers will find the high-elevation plants reported by
Multiannual research in aquatic domains has revealed a remarkable interannual variability in different ecosystems, from temperate to polar latitudes. Different kinds of natural factors seem to have affected microbial processes (
The content of this volume underlines and confirms how observations and analyses of ecological variables and processes at multiple scales are keys to understand important ecological relationships. Similar ecosystems can respond differently to identical changes in system drivers, depending on their inherent ecological structure and functioning, their history and spatial location within the territory and connections with adjacent ecosystems. The insights gained by this kind of research contribute to multiple aspects: from the formulation of general laws of ecology to the development of policies to face the Grand Challenges under Global Change at local, regional and planetary levels.
Before leaving the readers to enter the core of this Special Issue, we wish to express our gratitude to all colleagues who submitted manuscripts to this Special Issue and to the 51 reviewers for their time, attentive criticisms and constructive comments and suggestions. Our special thanks to Boriana Ovcharova, Managing Editor and the entire Editorial Office of Nature Conservation for their kind assistance and technical support.