Francesco Petruzzellis

University of Trieste | UNITS · Department of Life Sciences

Seagrass meadows play a vital role for lagoon ecosystems and their biota, sustaining multiple ecosystem services. Their distribution and functioning are closely tied to the environmental pressures induced by global changes. Long-term monitoring of seagrass species and communities is, hence, important to depict their response to past and future scen...

Biodiversity and sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are considerably impacted by invasive alien plants (IAPs). Increasing plant invasions in SSA threaten agricultural productivity, biodiversity conservation, and other socioeconomic activities, which in turn put the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in peril. In or...

Question Remote sensing is a fundamental tool to monitor biodiversity and spectral diversity may represent a proxy for different biodiversity facets such as taxonomic (TD) and functional diversity (FD). We used fine‐resolution multispectral imagery to explore spectral diversity (SD) patterns across spatial scales (i.e., plot, transect, area), and a...

Spectral diversity (SD) in reflectance can be used to estimate plant taxonomic diversity (TD) according to the Spectral Variation Hypothesis (SVH). However, contrasting relationships between SD and TD have been reported by different studies. Indeed, multiple factors may affect SD, including spatial and spectral scales, vegetation characteristics an...

Trait‐based ecology has already revealed main independent axes of trait variation defining trait spaces that summarize plant adaptive strategies, but often ignoring intraspecific trait variability (ITV). By using empirical ITV‐level data for two independent dimensions of leaf form and function and 167 species across five habitat types (coastal dune...

Questions: Can we map complex habitat mosaics from remote sensing data? In doing this, are measures of spectral heterogeneity useful to improve image classification performance? Which measures are the most important? How can multi-temporal data be integrated in a robust framework? Location: Classical Karst (NE Italy). Methods: First, a habitat map...

The vulnerability to xylem embolism is a key trait underlying species-specific drought tolerance of plants, and hence is critical for screening climate-resilient crops and understanding vegetation responses to drought and heat waves. Yet, accurate determination of embolism in plant’s xylem is challenging, because most traditional hydraulic techniqu...

In the last 20 years, a significant mortality of Fagus sylvatica L. (European beech) has been documented in central and northern European forests. Surprisingly, no beech die off occurred at the southern limit. This fact leads us to hypothesize that European beech populations growing at the southern limit of the distribution might have a significant...

The plant species Erechtites hieraciifolius (Asteraceae) is here reported for the first time in Italy as a naturalized neophyte in the Classical Karst. The species was observed in 2023 in post-fire forest areas burnt by wildfires in the summer 2022. The features of findings suggest for a naturalization of the species with putative invasive characte...

The “Leaf Economic Spectrum” (LES) represent one of the fundamental principles of trait-based ecology, describing how plants allocate resources for leaf construction and growth. LES traits capture the most relevant trade-offs between species-specific relative growth rates, stress tolerance, mechanical reinforcement, and longevity of leaves. Specifi...

The estimation of plant taxonomic diversity (TD) based on spectral diversity (SD) in reflectance can be achieved through the so-called Spectral Variation Hypothesis (SVH). However, studies conducted in various habitats and using diverse sensors, methodologies and diversity indices have presented conflicting relationships between SD and TD. Several...

Human-induced fragmentation and habitat loss are major threats to biodiversity, operating at different spatial scales. Linear infrastructure such as roads can disrupt habitat connectivity, posing a serious threat to animal communities. In this study, we quantified the habitat connectivity and roadkill risk for the mammal community in the Friuli Ven...

Remote sensing is a well-established tool for habitat mapping, but its use is still challenging in heterogeneous landscape mosaics. Novel approaches to improve classification performance include multi-temporal data and multiple remotely sensed variables, but have rarely included spectral heterogeneity (SH) measures. The aim of this study was to dev...

Plant hydraulic traits related to leaf drought tolerance like the water potential at turgor loss point (TLP) and the water potential inducing 50% loss of hydraulic conductance (P50), are extremely useful to predict potential impacts of drought on plants. While novel techniques allowed the inclusion of TLP in studies targeting a large group of speci...

Xylem embolism is one of the possible outcomes of decreasing xylem pressure when plants face drought. Recent studies have proposed a role for non-structural carbohydrates in osmotic pressure generation, required for refilling embolized conduits. Potted cuttings of grapevine Grenache and Barbera, selected for their adaptation to different climatic c...

Citation: Tomasella, M.; Calderan, A.; Mihelčič, A.; Petruzzellis, F.; Braidotti, R.; Natale, S.; Lisjak, K.; Sivilotti, P.; Nardini, A. Best Procedures for Leaf and Stem Water Potential Measurements in Grapevine: Cultivar and Water Status Matter. Abstract: The pressure chamber is the most used tool for plant water status monitoring. However, speci...

Key message Stem photosynthesis seems to play an adaptive role for woody plants that prosper in hot and dry ecosystems. Abstract Stem photosynthesis is thought to be involved in tree resistance/resilience to water shortage. Recent studies have focused on the coordination between stem photosynthesis and hydraulics, but the generality of association...

Fragmentation and habitat loss caused by human activities are among the major threats to biodiversity, acting at different spatial and temporal scales. Linear infrastructures such as roads could interrupt habitat connectivity, thus representing a serious threat to the animal population. In this study, we quantified habitat connectivity and roadkill...

Protected areas, established to preserve ecosystems and protect biodiversity, are essential for a stable and long-term provision of multiple ecosystem services (ESs). Nevertheless, there is not a decisive agreement on the effectiveness of onservation strategies in maintaining or enhancing ESs and preserve biodiversity. The aims of this study were t...

Plant and community functional composition provide valuable insights in ecosystem functioning. However, sampling activities are often cost and time demanding. As an alternative approach, remote sensing could allow to retrieve information about plant communities and their functional composition from the spectral signal of the canopy. In this study,...

Remote sensing is a fundamental tool to monitor biodiversity over large spatial extents. However, it is still not clear whether spectral diversity (SD - variation of spectral response across a set of pixels) may represent a fast and reliable proxy for different biodiversity facets such as taxonomic (TD) and functional diversity (FD) across differen...

Plant water content is a simple and promising parameter for monitoring drought-driven plant mortality risk. However, critical water content thresholds leading to cell damage and plant failure are still unknown. Moreover, it is unclear whether whole-plant or a specific organ water content is the most reliable indicator of mortality risk. We assessed...

51° National Conference of Società Italiana di Agronomia

Predicting the consequences of climate change is of utmost importance to mitigate impacts on vulnerable ecosystems; plant hydraulic traits are particularly useful proxies for predicting functional disruptions potentially occurring in the near future. This study assessed the current and future regional patterns of leaf water potential at turgor loss...

Climatic change is affecting more and more local communities that are now facing different hazards; in answer to this threat, specific actions at local level should be taken. The Covenant of Mayors (CoM) is an initiative which tries to involve municipalities and communities in developing SECAPs, i.e. plans for sustainable energy and climate with th...

Irrigation management in extensive green roofs (EGRs) is crucial in Mediterranean and semi‐arid climates, as it should guarantee efficient water use while ensuring plant survival and vegetation cover. However, benefits of maintaining moderately low substrate water potential (Ψs) have not been adequately investigated to date. An irrigation control u...

(1) Recent studies suggested that stem photosynthesis could favor bark water uptake and embolism recovery when stem segments are soaked in water under light conditions, but evidence for this phenomenon in drought-resistant Mediterranean species with photosynthetic stems is missing. (2) Embolism recovery upon immersion in water for 2 h–4 h under lig...

Grapevines are being challenged by climate changes, forcing winemakers to implement irrigation systems to cope with excessive water stress. Previous studies focused on a small set of international varieties, and only few data are available for terroirs hosting cultivars with possibly different responses to drought stress. In this light, we monitore...

Increasing frequency and severity of drought events is posing risks to trees' health, including those planted in urban settlements. Drought‐induced decline of urban trees negatively affects ecosystem services of urban green spaces and implies cost for maintenance and removal of plants. We aimed at identifying physiological traits that can explain a...

Consequences of climate change are often more obvious on global scale, but downsizing at regional scale implies a good knowledge of territory, its intrinsic fragility and the urban characteristics. Underlining and predicting trends of climate variables within regional and especially municipal scales to promote adaptation and mitigation strategies i...

Global warming is exposing plants to increased risks of drought-driven mortality. Recent advances suggest that hydraulic failure is a key process leading to plant death, and the identification of simple and reliable proxies of species-specific risk of irreversible hydraulic damage is urgently required. We assessed the predictive power of leaf water...

Nonstructural carbohydrates (NSCs) have been suggested to affect xylem transport under fluctuating water availability, but conclusive evidence is still lacking. We tested the effect of shade‐induced NSC depletion on xylem vulnerability to embolism and hydraulic recovery on Populus nigra saplings. Vulnerability was assessed in light‐exposed (L) and...

Plant invasive alien species (IAS) are a serious threat to biodiversity. Several studies have compared the functional features of IAS and native species to identify the functional traits, or set of traits, favouring the process of invasion. However, most of these studies analysed traits only related to carbon and nutrients, and the inclusion of tra...

On the 29th of October 2018, a storm named “Vaia” hit North-Eastern Italy, causing the loss of 8 million m3 of standing trees and creating serious damage to the forested areas, with many economic and ecological implications. This event brought up the necessity of a standard procedure for windthrow detection and monitoring based on satellite data as...

Leaf hydraulic conductance (K leaf) is highly dynamic and typically responds to changes in water status and irradiance. However, the relative contribution of vascular (K x) and extra-vascular (K ox) water pathways to K leaf changes in response to water potential decline and recovery in function of light conditions remains poorly investigated. We in...

In drought‐stressed plants a coordinated cascade of chemical and transcriptional adjustments occurs at the same time as embolism formation. While these processes do not affect embolism formation during stress, they may prime stems for recovery during rehydration by modifying apoplast pH and increasing sugar concentration in the xylem sap. Here we s...

Drought‐induced tree mortality frequently occurs in patches with different spatial and temporal distributions, which is only partly explained by inter‐ and intraspecific variation in drought tolerance. We investigated whether bedrock properties, with special reference to rock water storage capacity, affects tree water status and drought response in...

Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are a serious threat to biodiversity, severely affecting natural habitats and species assemblages. However, no consistent empirical evidence emerged on which functional traits or trait combination may foster community invasibility. Novel insights on the functional features promoting community invasibility may arise from...

Accurate predictions of species distribution under current and future climate conditions require modeling efforts based on clear mechanistic relationships between climate variables and plant physiological functions. Vulnerability of leaves to xylem embolism is a key mechanistic trait that might be included in these modeling efforts. Here, we propos...

Increased frequency of tree mortality and forest decline due to anomalous drought events calls for the adoption of effective monitoring of tree water status over large spatial and temporal scales. We correlated field-measured and remotely sensed plant water status parameters, to test the possibility of monitoring the risk of drought-induced dehydra...

The xylem is a complex system that includes a network of dead conduits ensuring long-distance water transport in plants. Under ongoing climate changes, xylem embolism is a major and recurrent cause of drought-induced tree mortality. Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) play key roles in plant responses to drought and frost stress, and several studies...

The maintenance of hydraulic function during and after a drought event is crucial for tree survival, but the importance of non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs) in the recovery phase is still debated. We tested whether higher NSC availability facilitates post-drought hydraulic recovery, by applying a short-term drought (Sdr) and a long-term drought c...

Despite that congruence across taxa has been proved as an effective tool to provide insights into the processes structuring the spatial distribution of taxonomic groups and is useful for conservation purposes, only a few studies on cross-taxon congruence focused on freshwater ecosystems and on the relations among vascular plants and lichens. We hyp...

Questions Despite the increasing scientific interest in distance decay of compositional similarity in ecology, the scale dependence of geographical versus environmental control on distance decay of biological communities has not been properly addressed so far. The present work highlights the relative importance of niche‐based processes versus dispe...

Environmental sustainability of viticulture is negatively affected by prolonged droughts. In limestone dominated regions, there is limited knowledge on grapevine water status and on methods for accurate evaluation of actual water demand, necessary to appropriately manage irrigation. During a dry vintage, we monitored plant and soil water relations...

Understanding which structural and functional traits are linked to species vulnerability to embolism formation (P50) may provide fundamental knowledge on plant strategies to maintain an efficient water transport. We measured P50, wood density (WD), mean conduit area (MCA), conduit density (CD), percentage areas occupied by vessels (VA), parenchyma...

Understanding which structural and functional traits are linked to species vulnerability to embolism formation (P50) may provide fundamental knowledge on plant strategies to maintain an efficient water transport. We measured P50, wood density (WD), mean conduit area (MCA), conduit density (CD), percentage areas occupied by vessels (VA), parenchyma...

Invasive alien species are a serious threat to biodiversity. Several studies and meta-analyses have been focused on the comparison between invasive (IAS) and native species but, to date, a unique set of traits responsible for the invasive potential of alien species at a global scale has not been clearly identified. Most previous studies analysed fe...

Key message Novel features related to turgor loss adjustment and higher ability to modulate leaf-construction costs could improve A. altissima fitness in its invaded range. Abstract Phenotypic plasticity has been recently proposed to play an important role in invasion process. More precisely, phenotypic plasticity of alien invasive species could b...

Embolism repair ability has been documented in numerous species. Although the actual mechanism driving this phenomenon is still debated, experimental findings suggest that non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) stored in wood parenchyma would provide the osmotic forces to drive the refilling of embolized conduits. We selected 12 broadleaved species dif...

Drought tolerance shapes the distribution of plant species, and it is mainly determined by the osmotic potential at full turgor (π0) and the water potential at turgor loss point (Ψtlp). We provide a simplified framework for π0 and Ψtlp measurements based on osmometer determination of π0 (π0_osm). Specifically, we ran regression models to i) improve...

Questions: 1) Are there differences in abundance-weighted functional trait values between native and alien species in coastal plant communities? 2) Which functional traits are associated with a higher level of invasion in these communities? 3) Do functional diversity patterns differ between native and alien species? 4) Is alien species occurrence l...

Italy is among the European countries with the greatest plant diversity due to both a great environmental heterogeneity and a long history of man-environment interactions. Trait-based approaches to ecological studies have developed greatly over recent decades worldwide, although several issues concerning the relationships between plant functional t...

The seedling stage is the most susceptible one during a tree′s life. Water relations may be crucial for seedlings due to their small roots, limited water buffers and the effects of drought on water transport. Despite obvious relevance, studies on seedling xylem hydraulics are scarce as respective methodical approaches are limited. Micro‐CT scans of...

Synchrotron X‐ray computed micro‐tomography (micro CT ) has emerged as a promising noninvasive technique for in vivo monitoring of xylem function, including embolism build‐up under drought and hydraulic recovery following re‐irrigation. Yet, the possible harmful effects of ionizing radiation on plant tissues have never been quantified. We specifica...

In the last decades, functional traits-based studies raised as a novel approach to assess the plant’s characteristics favoring the invasion process. Recent meta-analyses have compared functional traits of species with different growth forms and biogeographical origin, finding consistent patterns in traits’ differences between alien and native speci...

Sand dune ecosystems are peculiar environments rich in rare species and endemism. Over the last decades, these habitats that naturally suffer harsh abiotic conditions have been heavily threatened by human-induced alterations and biological invasions. However, mechanisms of plant invasion in these habitats are not fully understood, especially in rel...

The relation between water status and expression profiles of desiccation -related genes has been studied in the desiccation tolerant (DT) aeroterrestrial green microalga Trebouxia gelatinosa, a common lichen photobiont. Algal colonies were desiccated in controlled conditions and during desiccation water content (WC) and water potential (Ψ) were mea...

Invasion of natural habitats by alien trees is a threat to forest conservation. Our understanding of fundamental ecophysiological mechanisms promoting plant invasions is still limited, and hydraulic and water relation traits have been only seldom included in studies comparing native and invasive trees. We compared several leaf and wood functional a...

Ongoing variations in rainfall and temperature regimes affect the physiology and productivity of grapevines, calling for irrigation in drought-prone areas. During vintage 2015, we monitored plants water status and indirectly assessed rooting depth and exploited water sources (oxygen isotope analyses) in a mature Vitis vinifera cv. Malvasia Istriana...

Main conclusion: Drought tolerance was greater in the whole lichen than in its isolated photobiont. Cell turgor state has an influence on the functionality of photosynthetic process in lichens. Irreversible thermodynamics is widely used to describe the water relations of vascular plants. However, poikilohydrous organisms like lichens and aeroterre...

The choice of the best sampling strategy to capture mean values of functional traits for a species/population, while maintaining information about traits’ variability and minimizing the sampling size and effort, is an open issue in functional trait ecology. Intraspecific variability (ITV) of functional traits strongly influences sampling size and e...

Vulnerability curves (VCs) are a useful tool to investigate the susceptibility of plants to drought-induced hydraulic failure, and several experimental techniques have been used for their measurement. The validity of the bench dehydration method coupled to hydraulic measurements, considered as a 'golden standard', has been recently questioned calli...

In the last decades, trait based studies raised as a novel approach in ecology, but several issues are still partially unresolved. First, the choice of the best set of traits to measure is fundamental to gain as much as possible information about plants’ performance. Moreover, assessing the adequate sampling strategy is fundamental to avoid underes...

One of the most controversial issue in trait-based ecology regards the choice of the best sampling strategy to capture mean values of functional traits for a species/population, while maintaining information about traits’ variability and minimizing the sampling size and effort. Recent studies reported that intraspecific variability (ITV) of functio...

Functional coordination between leaf and stem hydraulics has been proposed as a key trait of drought-resistant plants. A balanced water transport efficiency and safety of different plant organs might be of particular importance for plant survival in the Mediterranean climate. We monitored seasonal changes of leaf and stem water relations of Salvia...