ANNALI DI BOTANICA                                             ANNALI DI BOTANICA

Ann. Bot. (Roma), 2013, 3: 237–244                                  COENOLOGY AND PLANT ECOLOGY

  Journal homepage: http://annalidibotanica.uniroma1.it                          Volume 3, 2013

                                                                                             Published in Rome (Italy)
                                                                                                           ISSN 0365-0812

                                                                              Pietro Romualdo Pirotta, founder, 1884

                                                                 NOTES

HUMAN IMPACT ASSESSMENT ON THE SICILIAN AGROECOSYSTEMS THROUGH
                          THE EVALUATION OF MELLIFEROUS AREAS

                    FERRAUTO G. 1,*, COSTA R.M.S. 1, PAVONE P.1, CANTARELLA G.L.2

 1Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche e Ambientali, Sezione di Biologia Vegetale, Università di Catania,
                                               Via A. Longo 19, 95125, Catania, Italy
                                               2Corso Italia 207, 95127, Catania, Italy

                       *Corresponding author: Telephone: +39 095430901; e-mail: ggferra@unict.it

                       (RECEIVED 07 MARCH 2013; RECEIVED IN REVISED FORM 20 MARCH 2013; ACCEPTED 21 MARCH 2013)

ABSTRACT – Human activity has influenced and profoundly changed the territory of Sicily. The increase of urban and suburban areas, transport
infrastructure and the changes in land cover use, have led to a fragmentation of the landscape and consequently, of areas of nectariferous importance.
Honey is one of the products most tied to and influenced by the land composition since it derives its main features from the environment, vegetation
and flora of the areas in which the bees move. The goal of this work is to built a map of the melliferous areas present in Sicily and then to chart and
assess the state of fragmentation and disturbance of areas of apiarian interest, caused by the presence of urban infrastructure and road networks, so
as to better define future planning guidelines for the protection and management of the environment for the preservation of honeybees and of
beekeeping activities.

KEYWORDS: HUMAN IMPACT, GIS, FRAGMENTATION, URBAN INTERFERENCE, NECTARIFEROUS RESOURCES, MELISSOPALYNOLOGY

INTRODUCTION                                                   represented important melliferous resources for the production
                                                               of different honey types. Recently, the increasing urbanization
Human activities have profoundly modified the territory of     has led to substantial fragmentation of the landscape and a
Sicily with the effect that both the native vegetation and     considerable reduction of the areas traditionally used for the
agroecosystems are now subsumed into a complex artificial      production of honey. Moreover, the impoverishment of
system. One of the effects caused by human pressure is         nectariferous resources, due to the reduction or disappearance
landscape fragmentation (Di Giulio et al., 2009; Fischer &     especially of those areas with a strong tradition of beekeeping,
Lindenmayer, 2007) leading to the reduction of habitat in      is reflected in both qualitative and quantitative production of
time and space and the separation into small areas that may    various types of honey.
become isolated from each other. Consequent to the             Several studies have been carried out to evaluate habitat
fragmentation of these ecosystems are a significant loss of    fragmentation through the application of landscape metrics
biodiversity (Brooks et al., 2002; Fahring, 2003, Hoffmeister  (Collinge, 1996; Hargis et al., 1998; Plieninger, 2006;
et al., 2005), a strong alteration in plant richness and       Aparicio, 2008; Geri et al., 2010); however, few studies have
composition and a substantial breaking up of nectariferous     been performed to evaluate current and potential honeybee
areas.                                                         pastures (Miori & Matteotti, 2007; Amiri & Mohamed
Sicily was a territory characterized by high floristic and     Shariff, 2012). To our knowledge, there are no existing
vegetation diversity thanks to the presence of several         studies assessing the state of fragmentation as it is today.
endemic species and interesting vegetation communities that    Buonanno & Aronne (2004) analyzed the distribution of
                                                               honey plants and their blooming periods using GIS spatial
doi: 10.4462/annbotrm-10305