Inventory and conservation of natural-type communities outside forest: the Lampedusa Island (Pelagian Archipelago, Sicilian Channel) case-study

Abstract

This paper illustrates the results of a survey of the most interesting botanical aspects of Lampedusa Island (Pelagie Archipelago, province of Agrigento). The primary maquis communities of this island have been cut down during the second half of the XIX century. The enduring human pressure and the severe environmental constraints inhibited the recovery of the original vegetal landscape, notwithstanding the abandonment of the agricultural activity of the last decades. Nowadays, many woody and herbaceous species are represented by very few individuals; their rarefaction provides a local evidence of the wider process of genetic erosion, which is still going on within the entire Mediterranean Basin. A continuous and careful monitoring of the status of rare plants should enhance the development of more adequate conservation strategies. In this aim, an inventory of a relevant part of the botanical peculiarities of the island has been carried out using GIS/GPS methodologies.