Conservation and Research of Aquatic Endangered Plants

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Biodiversity and Functionality of Aquatic Ecosystems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 5448

Special Issue Editor

Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Cagliari, 09123 Cagliari, Italy
Interests: plant diversity; plant conservation studies; insular flora; endemic and threatened plants; reproductive biology studies; endemics and rare species; population ecology; monitoring methods
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Aquatic ecosystems are impacted by multiple stressors, from human and agricultural land uses to climate change, which affects ecological and chemical status, water quantity, and ecosystem functions.

Understanding how stressors interfere with and understanding their impact upon ecological status is essential for documenting relative “endangerment” status for plant species and for developing effective conservation plans. This is particularly important for aquatic organisms, which are especially vulnerable to human-induced environmental degradation of natural environments and are experiencing rapid global decline.

In many aquatic ecosystems, the plant community’s composition and structure are of key importance to ecosystem functions and biodiversity; therefore, they play a crucial role in the functioning of aquatic ecosystems. Many aquatic species have become locally, or even globally, extinct during the last 50 years due to water pollution, eutrophication, or a changed hydrological regime. The rapid disappearance of aquatic plant species makes them priority targets for conservation.

We are calling for papers that illustrate examples of studies and conservation measures on aquatic endangered species, finalized to know their conservation status, to recover threatened populations, to prevent extinction, to enhance their chances of survival, and to develop proper conservation strategies.

Dr. Donatella Cogoni
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • aquatic plants
  • threatened species
  • conservation strategy
  • plant species with extremely small populations
  • diversity
  • climate change

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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11 pages, 1024 KiB  
Article
Conservation Need for a Plant Species with Extremely Small Populations Linked to Ephemeral Streams in Adverse Desert Environments
by Mohammad K. Mohammad, Hayder M. Al-Rammahi, Donatella Cogoni and Giuseppe Fenu
Water 2022, 14(17), 2638; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14172638 - 26 Aug 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1491
Abstract
Many thousands of tree species are declining in the world, for which conservation actions are urgent. This dramatic situation is particularly evident for trees closely related to freshwater ecosystems, considered the environments most threatened by global change. In extremely arid environments such as [...] Read more.
Many thousands of tree species are declining in the world, for which conservation actions are urgent. This dramatic situation is particularly evident for trees closely related to freshwater ecosystems, considered the environments most threatened by global change. In extremely arid environments such as deserts, where the few plant species present are able to survive by exploiting the little water available, the situation is extremely critical. A representative case is Vachellia gerrardii subsp. negevensis, a tree with a wide distribution range but locally restricted to small and isolated populations. Knowledge about this tree is incomplete in Iraq and, to fill this gap, several surveys were conducted in the Al-Najaf desert over three years (2019–2021). In each locality where this species was found, several ecological and population parameters were recorded. Our results indicate that Vachellia gerrardii subsp. negevensis was restricted to a single population, fragmented into five subpopulations confined in extremely peculiar ecological niches. Several threats related to anthropogenic activities and climate change affect the population, causing a significant reduction in the population size combined with a continuous decline in habitat quality and number of mature plants. Despite this critical situation, there are no conservation measures for this species. The establishment of a national preserve or part would be important and constitutes the fundamental prerequisite for the conservation of multiple species. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Conservation and Research of Aquatic Endangered Plants)
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Review

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23 pages, 2801 KiB  
Review
Extremes Rainfall Events on Riparian Flora and Vegetation in the Mediterranean Basin: A Challenging but Completely Unexplored Theme
by Maria Silvia Pinna, Maria Cecilia Loi, Giulia Calderisi and Giuseppe Fenu
Water 2022, 14(5), 817; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/w14050817 - 05 Mar 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3412
Abstract
In a global climate change scenario “Extreme climatic events” are expected to widely affect flora and vegetation in Med-regions, especially “Extremes Rainfall Events” which will have impacts on riparian environments. Aiming to provide an in-depth picture on the effects of these events on [...] Read more.
In a global climate change scenario “Extreme climatic events” are expected to widely affect flora and vegetation in Med-regions, especially “Extremes Rainfall Events” which will have impacts on riparian environments. Aiming to provide an in-depth picture on the effects of these events on the riparian flora and vegetation in the Mediterranean Basin, especially focusing on islands, a bibliographic search was performed in the main international databases, which led to 571 articles published from 2000 to 2021. Most studies have analyzed these phenomena from the climatic point of view identifying three main topics “Rainfall”, “Global/Climate change”, and “Flood”. 81 papers concerned effects of extreme events on Mediterranean woodland formations and cultivated plants. A further analysis focused on European countries and Mediterranean bioregion using “Extreme rainfall events” and “Extreme rainfall and floods” as keywords. A low number of records relating to Mediterranean island regions was found, having Sicily as the study area. Moreover, seven articles had Sardinia as a study area, four of which referred to flora and vegetation. A lack of studies on the effects of extreme rainfall events on riparian flora and vegetation were highlighted. This review constitutes a call for researchers to explore extreme phenomena that have become recurrent in the Mediterranean Basin. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Conservation and Research of Aquatic Endangered Plants)
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