Schede Briofite

Handbooks for monitoring species and habitats of community interest (Council Directive 92/43/EEC) in Italy: plant species The Habitats Directive requires Member States to implement surveillance of the conservation status of habitats and species of Community interest. The aim of this handbook is to outline the methodological instruments for implementing a monitoring program of the Italian plant species, as required by art. 17, with particular reference to data collection at site level. The European guidelines require the assessments to be carried out by compiling information on specific parameters at biogeographical scale. For each plant species, four parameters have to be considered and combined to obtain an overall assessment for each biogeographical region at national level: "Range" (based on actual distribution), "Population", “Habitat for the species” and "Future Prospects". Monitoring programs need to collect data dealing with the first three parameters at a local level. In this handbook, a monitoring form for each plant taxon (species, subspecies or genera) of Community interest occurring in Italy is presented. Altogether, it contains 118 forms, referring to 107 vascular taxa, 10 bryophytes and 1 lichenic taxon. Monitoring methods have been defined with the support of the Italian Botanical Society and leading national experts and reviewed by personnel of the Italian Regions and Autonomous Provinces. The monitoring forms thus report the most effective available techniques and provide an operational guidance for data collection and monitoring schedule with the aim of standardizing data collection efforts across Italy. A standardized basis of information is indeed important for assembling data and producing comparable assessments on the conservation status of each plant taxon both at national and European level.