Iconic but Invasive: The Public Perception of the Chinese Windmill Palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) in Switzerland

Biological invasions strongly increased during the last centuries and are challenging environmental managers worldwide. In this context, public acceptance of management measures is a key factor determining the long-term success of the control of invasive species. However, in the case of charismatic and iconic invasive species, the public has often been unwilling to accept strict management measures. Here, we studied the public perception of the Chinese windmill palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) in Switzerland, which is declared as invasive in southern Switzerland but also recognized as iconic. We conducted a nation-wide online survey in the multilingual and multicultural context of Switzerland, investigating the influence of social and cultural factors on the knowledge of, the attitude toward, and the willingness to control the invasive T. fortunei. Results confirm that the knowledge and perception of invasive plants have a strong social and cultural component and may vary greatly as a function of the cultural background, education level, age, and other social characteristics. Furthermore, information on the invasiveness of the focal species provided during the survey significantly affected informants' perceptions, which are closely related to the acceptance of possible management and control measures. This allows us to highlight the importance of a holistic approach that includes targeted public information when dealing with biological invasions, especially in the case of charismatic and iconic species. Based on the obtained results, we suggest avenues for refining management and control strategies of T. fortunei in Switzerland, many of which generally applicable to other cases of invasive species.

Modelling the meteorological forest fire niche in heterogeneous pyrologic conditions

Fire regimes are strongly related to weather conditions that directly and indirectly influence fire ignition and propagation. Identifying the most important meteorological fire drivers is thus fundamental for daily fire risk forecasting. In this context, several fire weather indices have been developed focussing mainly on fire-related local weather conditions and fuel characteristics. The specificity of the conditions for which fire danger indices are developed makes its direct transfer and applicability problematic in different areas or with other fuel types. In this paper we used the low-to-intermediate fire-prone region of Canton Ticino as a case study to develop a new daily fire danger index by implementing a niche modelling approach (Maxent). In order to identify the most suitable weather conditions for fires, different combinations of input variables were tested (meteorological variables, existing fire danger indices or a combination of both). Our findings demonstrate that such combinations of input variables increase the predictive power of the resulting index and surprisingly even using meteorological variables only allows similar or better performances than using the complex Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI). Furthermore, the niche modelling approach based on Maxent resulted in slightly improved model performance and in a reduced number of selected variables with respect to the classical logistic approach. Factors influencing final model robustness were the number of fire events considered and the specificity of the meteorological conditions leading to fire ignition.

Selection of multiple umbrella species for functional and taxonomic diversity to represent urban biodiversity

Surrogates, such as umbrella species, are commonly used to reduce the complexity of quantifying biodiversity for conservation purposes. The presence of umbrella species is often indicative of high taxonomic diversity; however, functional diversity is now recognized as an important metric for biodiversity and thus should be considered when choosing umbrella species. We identified umbrella species associated with high taxonomic and functional biodiversity in urban areas in Switzerland. We analyzed 39,752 individuals of 574 animal species from 96 study plots and 1397 presences of 262 plant species from 58 plots. Thirty-one biodiversity measures of 7 taxonomic groups (plants, spiders, bees, ground beetles, lady bugs, weevils and birds) were included in within- and across-taxa analyses. Sixteen measures were taxonomical (species richness and species diversity), whereas 15 were functional (species traits including mobility, resource use, and reproduction). We used indicator value analysis to identify umbrella species associated with single or multiple biodiversity measures. Many umbrella species were indicators of high biodiversity within their own taxonomic group (from 33.3% in weevils to 93.8% in birds), to a lesser extent they were indicators across taxa. Principal component analysis revealed that umbrella species for multiple measures of biodiversity represented different aspects of biodiversity, especially with respect to measures of taxonomic and functional diversity. Thus, even umbrella species for multiple measures of biodiversity were complementary in the biodiversity aspects they represented. Thus, the choice of umbrella species based solely on taxonomic diversity is questionable and may not represent biodiversity comprehensively. Our results suggest that, depending on conservation priorities, managers should choose multiple and complementary umbrella species to assess the state of biodiversity.

Swissfire: die neue schweizerische Waldbranddatenbank | Swissfire: the new Swiss forest fire database

Fire is a spatially heterogeneous and irregularly occurring phenomenon. Forest fire statistics extending over decades are needed in order to describe comprehensively the fire regime in a given region, to improve preventive measures and to optimize fire-fighting strategies. On commission by the Federal Office for the Environment the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL developed in 2008 the forest fire database Swissfire for the whole of Switzerland. The purpose of Swissfire is to register systematically, centrally and without gaps all data concerning forest fires in Switzerland, according to a standardized protocol. Information on fire outbreaks is organized in various tables reporting fire-specific parameters and other relevant environmental, socio-economical and organizational characteristics. This database makes it possible for the 26 cantonal forest services to register and manage forest fire data online, and also to produce forest fire statistics and printable charts. Such a comprehensive forest fire database represents a great potential for future research on forest fires in Switzerland.

Wildfire seasonality and land use: when do wildfires prefer to burn?

Because of the increasing anthropogenic fire activity, understanding the role of land-use in shaping wildfire regimes has become a major concern. In the last decade, an increasing number of studies have been carried out on the relationship between land-use and wildfire patterns, in order to identify land-use types where fire behaves selectively, showing a marked preference (or avoidance) in terms of fire incidence. By contrast, the temporal aspects of the relationship between landuse types and wildfire occurrence have received far less attention. The aim of this paper is, thus, to analyze the temporal patterns of fire occurrence in Sardinia (Italy) during the period 2000-2006 to identify land-use types where wildfires occur earlier or later than expected from a random null model. The study highlighted a close relationship between the timing of fire occurrence and land-cover that is primarily governed by two complementary processes: climatic factors that act indirectly on the timing of wildfires determining the spatial distribution of land-use types, and human population and human pressure that directly influence fire ignition. From a practical viewpoint, understanding the temporal trends of wildfires within the different land-use classes can be an effective decision-support tool for fire agencies in managing fire risk and for producing provisional models of fire behavior under changing climatic scenarios and evolving landscapes.

Extending the temporal context of ethnobotanical databases: the case study of the Campania region (southern Italy)

BACKGROUND

Ethnobotanical studies generally describe the traditional knowledge of a territory according to a "hic et nunc" principle. The need of approaching this field also embedding historical data has been frequently acknowledged. With their long history of civilization some regions of the Mediterranean basin seem to be particularly suited for an historical approach to be adopted. Campania, a region of southern Italy, has been selected for a database implementation containing present and past information on plant uses.

METHODS

A relational database has been built on the basis of information gathered from different historical sources, including diaries, travel accounts, and treatises on medicinal plants, written by explorers, botanists, physicians, who travelled in Campania during the last three centuries. Moreover, ethnobotanical uses described in historical herbal collections and in Ancient and Medieval texts from the Mediterranean Region have been included in the database.

RESULTS

1672 different uses, ranging from medicinal, to alimentary, ceremonial, veterinary, have been recorded for 474 species listed in the data base. Information is not uniformly spread over the Campanian territory; Sannio being the most studied geographical area and Cilento the least one. About 50 plants have been continuously used in the last three centuries in the cure of the same affections. A comparison with the uses reported for the same species in Ancient treatises shows that the origin of present ethnomedicine from old learned medical doctrines needs a case-by-case confirmation.

CONCLUSION

The database is flexible enough to represent a useful tool for researchers who need to store and compare present and previous ethnobotanical uses from Mediterranean Countries.