Background and aims – Forests are among the most threatened ecosystems worldwide, endemic plants often a vulnerable component of flora given territory. So far, however, understory forest endemics southern Europe have received little attention poorly known for several aspects. Material methods We developed first list native vascular that restricted to Italian forests. Available information on ta...

To test the germination capacity and its temperature dependence in Mediterranean plants, sixteen species representative of a diversity of habitats of the Balearic Islands were selected. The percentage of germination, the half-response time and the dormancy period of these species were studied at three alternating temperatures: 5-15 C, 10-20 C and 15-25 C. Large differences were found among spec...

Native grasslands are among the most imperiled of the North American ecosystems, but abandoned agricultural areas may provide suitable habitat for animal taxa that are endemic to grasslands. We studied how species diversity of orb-weaving spiders was influenced by secondary succession of a grassland plant community by monitoring the abundance and species diversity in study plots that were culti...