Gianmaria Bonari

In the southernmost site plant diversity shows a U-shape, enabling win-win outcomes.

Clear trade-offs emerge between carbon stocks and plant diversity in most sites.

Herbaceous diversity declines during succession, with site-specific patterns.

Natural forest expansion increases ecosystem carbon stocks along succession.

16 chronosequences were established to analyse carbon and diversity trends.

🌳As forests reclaim the land: Latitudinal variations in carbon-biodiversity trade-offs under natural forest expansion in Italy

Forest Ecology and Management: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The distinct responses of forest habitat types to topography-mediated climate conditions suggest the need for targeted adaptive management strategies.

Temperature is a strong biodiversity determinant. Still, projections should account for local regulatory mechanisms and consider that grouping different forest habitat types into a broad category can obscure critical diversity responses.

⛰️🌱 Topography and Soil Moisture Regulate the Temperature-Biodiversity Relationship of Forests

Global Ecology and Biogeography: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Top-down control of deer by wolves may entail MF recovery via reduced browsing.

FD management should be conducted on a large scale to reduce browsing impact.

FD inhabit ∼20 % EU-protected MFs, with potential bioregion-wide threats.

Introduced fallow deer (FD) boost browsing on MFs, but native roe deer do not.

Sentinel plants of Mediterranean forests (MFs) increase patch palatability to deer.

🦌🌿Browsing impact on Mediterranean forests: The role of introduced deer and implications for conservation

Biological Conservation: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Ecosystem state assessment after more than 100 years since planting for dune consolidation The assessment of the ecosystem state is fundamental to understand the success of ecological rehabilitation, especially in the long term. We aim to evaluate the rehabilitation success of a unique Med....

Very nice contributions! Within a similar context, perhaps you are interested in this one... The oldest dune rehabilitation in EU: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

We also present new members of the editorial board, a new permanent collection, and we thank the VED reviewers 2025. Finally, we are pleased to announce that we are seeking a linguistic editor.

Furthermore, we present the Editors’ choice article as well as articles that were both most viewed and most cited.

We show the number and type of papers published, the authors’ nationality, and the turnaround times.

In this editorial, we announce the journal’s return to the Scopus database following the change of its name, and we comment on its performance in the first year under the new name Vegetation Ecology and Diversity (VED)

🌿 One year of Vegetation Ecology and Diversity (VED)

Editorial 2026

ved.arphahub.com/article/1850...

This distinction highlights the need to consider vertical stratification when evaluating how forest species respond to environmental conditions.

Topographic solar radiation has a stronger influence on trees, while soil moisture is more important for shrubs.

Local factors such as topography and soil conditions strongly modulate the relationship between temperature and diversity.

By contrast, Mediterranean forests are likely to face declines in both taxonomic and functional diversity due to intensifying drought stress.

Temperature plays a major role in shaping forest diversity, but its effects vary across habitat types. Temperate forests are expected to experience an increase in diversity, as southern and low-elevation species may expand into these areas under more favorable conditions.

🌳How will Italian forests of the future look?

Our latest paper in GEB suggests that accurately predicting the effects of climate change on biodiversity requires accounting for the interplay between climate and local factors.

OA paper here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🌲 Rewilding old plantations. Bricca et al. demonstrate that canopy shade, elevation and environmental conditions interact to shape diversity across tree, shrub, herb and juvenile layers in former pine plantations 🌱💚.
📘 DOI: 10.1111/jvs.70085
#ForestRestoration

🌿 Le et al. explore how solitary trees shape plant communities in traditional wood-pastures. Canopy shade filters species composition and facilitates woody seedlings, creating distinct microscale habitats 🌳

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