Temporal changes in the vegetation of Italian coastal dunes: identifying winners and losers through the lens of functional traits

摘要

1. Plant communities of coastal dunes are highly biodiverse and greatly valued for the services they provide, yet they are also threatened by global change and are often neglected in conservation planning. To determine the long-term effectiveness of conservation actions on Mediterranean coastal dunes, here we focus on Italy's coastline and (i) assess how the vegetation cover of the major psammophilous habitats and species has changed since the 1960s, (ii) identify which ecological strategies have been most successful in the face of global change and (iii) evaluate the efficacy of the protected areas network for safeguarding plant communities of coastal dunes.