Annali di Botanica

A New Spirit, Again: Sandro Pignatti, the European Vegetation Survey and the Future of Vegetation Science

2026-08-31T14:10:11+00:00

This Special Issue of Annali di Botanica originates from a meeting held on 21 October 2025 at the Botanical Garden
of Sapienza University of Rome, where friends, colleagues and pupils gathered under the auspices of the European
Vegetation Survey Working Group of the International Association for Vegetation Science to celebrate the scientific
and human legacy of Sandro Pignatti (Attorre et al., 2025). The place was not accidental. The Orto Botanico of Rome
was one of the intellectual homes of Sandro’s mature work and, more specifically, the place where, in March 1992, he
convened the first workshop of what was to become the European Vegetation Survey (Rodwell et al. 1995). Nor is
the journal accidental. Since those first meetings, Annali di Botanica offered a hospitable forum for the proceedings of
the EVS, at a time when European vegetation science was still seeking a common language, common standards and,
perhaps above all, a common horizon.

The history of European vegetation databases: from relevé notebooks to a continental research infrastructure

2026-05-08T13:07:05+00:00

Europe holds the world’s richest legacy of vegetation‑plot data thanks to more than a century of phytosociological sampling. The past three decades transformed scattered, paper‑based records from vegetation plots into interoperable, queryable databases, culminating in the European Vegetation Archive (EVA), a governed infrastructure that integrates national, regional, and thematic databases and enables continent syntheses. This historical overview traces the development from early relevé traditions to the present. The main periods include the first experimentations with information technologies in the 1960s–1980s, the digitization wave supported by the IAVS Working Group European Vegetation Survey in the 1990s, the applications of vegetation-plot databases beyond vegetation classification in the 2000s, the consolidation achieved by the establishment of EVA in the 2010s, and the emergence of new databases, FloraVeg.EU and ReSurveyEurope, alongside the gradual transition towards open science in the 2020s.

Sandro Pignatti: a pioneer in the research on urban ecology

2026-03-13T18:18:19+00:00

Urban ecology has developed through different scientific traditions, including the Arizona school focusing on urban biotic communities, the Chinese school emphasizing urban metabolism and ecosystem services, and the Berlin school highlighting biodiversity and urban planning. Inspired by the work of Herbert Sukopp and the Berlin school, urban ecology was introduced in Rome in the 1980s by Sandro Pignatti, who initiated systematic studies of the city’s flora and ecosystems. Rome represents a unique case among European cities due to its exceptionally high biodiversity, with more than 1,600 vascular plant species recorded within the municipal territory. This richness is linked to the presence of extensive natural areas within the urban matrix, a relatively loose urban fabric with many semi-natural and abandoned spaces, and an ecological network of corridors connecting urban and peri-urban habitats.

The recognition of this biodiversity led in the 1990s to the establishment of the RomaNatura network of protected areas. This paper examines the ecological and social dynamics underlying urban biodiversity conservation in Rome, focusing on two case studies: the Aguzzano Urban Regional Park and the ex SNIA Viscosa Natural Monument. In Aguzzano Park, a citizen science project combining grid-based floristic surveys and remote sensing analysis enabled the mapping of vegetation communities and highlighted the role of collaborative research in documenting urban biodiversity. The ex SNIA site illustrates how spontaneous ecological restoration following industrial abandonment generated a highly diverse ecosystem that mobilized citizen activism and ultimately resulted in legal protection.

These cases demonstrate how the interaction between scientific research, civic engagement, and urban planning can foster the recognition and protection of novel urban ecosystems. The Roman experience highlights the potential of cities as biodiversity reservoirs and living laboratories for studying socio-ecological systems, emphasizing the importance of integrating ecological knowledge, citizen participation, and urban governance in biodiversity conservation.

Floristic and Vegetation Data Analysis in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

2025-12-19T14:07:21+00:00

The structuring of ecological data has long been central to biodiversity research. In Italy, Sandro Pignatti’s promotion of the first national database of Italian flora represented a landmark achievement in organizing ecological knowledge. Building on this legacy, the present paper explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be employed to obtain and analyze data, thereby complementing traditional approaches to vegetation analysis. Rather than offering a technical account of AI, the paper demonstrates its practical value through two case studies conducted with Microsoft Copilot, a free AI tool available in recent Windows systems. The first case study classifies Italian regions based on the chorological types of their flora. The second examines oak woodlands in Central-Southern Italy, considering structural data such as NDVI, biomass, and percentage of leaf cover. Both examples align with Pignatti’s research lines in phytogeography and plant ecology, and are intended to be critically assessed by researchers with expertise in these fields. The aim is not to present definitive findings, but to provide an opportunity to discuss AI-generated data and results. In doing so, the paper supports Pignatti’s vision of structured floristic and vegetation databases as essential for advancing biodiversity knowledge.

Environmental ethics and civil society in the legacy of Sandro Pignatti

2026-04-19T12:48:02+00:00

The present contribution aims to explore the epistemological and ethical implications of Sandro Pignatti’s scientific legacy, positioning his thought at the intersection of vegetation science, philosophy of nature, and environmental ethics. Sandro developed a unified perspective of nature as an interconnected whole, grounded in interdependence, intrinsic value, and epistemic humility. From an ecological standpoint, the paper analyzes his forward-looking reflections on humus, which he understood not merely as a soil component, but as a dynamic organizing principle connecting biotic and abiotic processes across multiple scales. Methodologically, the document examines his critical reflection on the epistemological limits of classical phytosociology and his innovative proposal of "micro-relevés". This approach implies a shift from a community-centred to a relation-centred perspective, building knowledge from the bottom up by analysing the direct contacts and statistical recurrence of associations around focal species. Finally, Sandro's legacy challenges the traditional separation between objective facts and values, demonstrating that ecological understanding implicitly carries ethical implications and moral responsibility. Highlighting the incompatibility between the logic of continuous economic growth and the finite nature of ecological systems, the author emphasizes the crucial role of civil society: environmental responsibility cannot be delegated solely to institutions, but requires active participation, cultural transformation, and the development of new forms of governance oriented toward long-term sustainability. Ultimately, his vision outlines a transformative ecology where environmental ethics is not an external addition to ecological science, but one of its most profound outcomes.

Sandro Pignatti (1930–2025): a vegetation scientist extraordinaire

2026-06-11T20:23:47+00:00

I knew this day would come when we woke up to the dreadful news that Sandro is not with us anymore. Besides, we, the global community of botanists, have lost a great person; this is particularly painful for me, as I have lost a mentor and a friend. Sandro and I shared many values, spanning our love for plants, including a common interest in the taxonomy of Limonium (a rather complicated Plumbaginaceae genus) and the complexity of vegetation. In this respect, Sandro was a 'typical' Italian university professor – covering botany in all its latitude. There will be several contributions in this special tribute to Sandro Pignatti's work, looking into the impact of his work in taxonomy and flora-writing (Flora d’Italia in two editions), the iconic European Vegetation Survey (Rodwell, 2026), or the philosophy of science (Guarino, 2026). Here, I focus on Sandro's impact on the theory and methodology of vegetation science and on his contribution to descriptive vegetation science, with syntaxonomy first and foremost.

Sandro Pignatti: the Trieste years

2026-02-28T21:03:26+00:00

The twenty years spent in Trieste by Sandro Pignatti as Professor of Systematic Botany are briefly outlined. Through his leadership, Trieste became a centre of excellence in geobotany, phytosociology, and ecological research. His pioneering use of computational methods, his monumental Flora d’Italia, and his ability to inspire new generations of botanists left an indelible mark on Italian and European plant sciences. His work during the Trieste years laid the foundations for modern vegetation science in Italy and contributed significantly to the internationalisation of Italian botany.

Sandro Pignatti and the European Vegetation Survey

2026-05-06T13:31:09+00:00

Abstract
This article traces the origins, development, and scientific impact of the European Vegetation Survey (EVS), highlighting the pivotal role of Sandro Pignatti in shaping its vision and collaborative ethos. Founded in the early 1990s, the EVS emerged as a pan-European initiative to advance phytosociology through coordinated vegetation surveys, standardized data practices, and integrative classification systems. The paper outlines three foundational objectives: promoting national vegetation survey programmes, establishing common data and software standards, and developing a unified European syntaxonomy. Key achievements include the creation of large-scale vegetation databases such as the European Vegetation Archive (EVA), the development of analytical tools (e.g., TURBOVEG, JUICE), and contributions to major classification frameworks like the EUNIS Habitat Classification and the EuroVeg Checklist. The EVS also played a central role in informing European environmental policy, notably through the Red List of European Habitats. Beyond its scientific outputs, the article emphasizes the importance of intellectual exchange, mentorship, and enduring professional networks fostered within the EVS community. Overall, the EVS is ներկայացed as a model of collaborative, data-driven ecological research with lasting influence on vegetation science and biodiversity conservation in Europe.

Consilience and palaeovegetation studies: why plant ecology needs the long-term past

2026-07-24T13:30:09+00:00

Ecological research increasingly addresses landscapes shaped by multiple interacting drivers, including climate change, land use, disturbance regimes, biological invasions and socio-economic transformations. This short perspective argues that consilience, understood as the convergence of independent lines of evidence, is essential for interpreting present-day vegetation and for designing future-oriented environmental policies. This short article is based on a conceptual synthesis of palaeoecology, plant ecology, historical ecology and landscape studies, with particular attention to pollen records and other palaeovegetation proxies. The main result is that modern plant communities cannot be adequately interpreted as static natural systems: they are historical configurations produced by long-term interactions among climate variability, species persistence, migration, extinction, disturbance and human management. Palaeovegetation records are therefore indispensable for defining dynamic baselines, identifying resilience thresholds, detecting land-use legacies and distinguishing natural variability from recent anthropogenic change. The main conclusion is that plant ecology and landscape reconstruction should systematically integrate long-term evidence. Past vegetation histories do not provide simple models to restore, but they define the range of ecological possibilities, constraints and risks within which future conservation, restoration and forest policies must operate.

Vegetation data processing and analysis in the light of the European Vegetation Survey

2026-03-03T18:52:36+00:00

The processing and analysis of collected field data is one of the key activities in vegetation research and as such a key topic of the European Vegetation Survey (EVS). The handling of vegetation data plays a vital role in achieving the goals that were set in the early years of the newborn organization, including the development of compatible software and the encouragement of national programs with the compilation of an overview of European plant communities (Rodwell et al. 1995). The national programs should result in national vegetation databases, that ultimately could be brought together in one central European vegetation database. How the major goals of the European Vegetation Survey were dealt with during the last forty years of vegetation research, is the topic of this article. The overview will be completed with some examples of how the results are applied in European nature policy and preceded by some historic and general concepts. The handling of vegetation data can be divided into an analytic and a synthetic phase, the first one dealing with the collection of data in the field, the second one with the processing of collected data behind the desk. The plot observation (vegetation relevé) can be seen as the basic document in the entire operation, whereas ordination and classification are principal techniques to reveal the interplay of plant species in nature, based on differences in how vegetation can be looked at, differences that strongly influenced the development of vegetation research in diverse parts of the world.