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Islands and plants: preservation and understanding of flora on Mediterranean islands

Hence, many drought and salt-tolerant African species could colonize Europe
via the Strait of Sicily. If this event, known as the Messinian crisis, ended with a
tremendous tsunami, as suggested by García-Castellanos et al. (2009), then the
lowland life of most of the Mediterranean Basin probably had to re-start from
bare rock.

The geological history of Sicily provides many examples of catastrophic
volcanic activity that erased the existing flora: Vulcano (De Astis et al., 1997)
and Stromboli (Rosi et al., 2000) erupted explosively and nearly continuously
during the Plio-Pleistocene, while Pantelleria (Civetta et al., 1988), Lipari
(Crisci et al., 1990), Salina (Gertisser & Keller, 2000), and Panarea (Lucchi et
al., 2007) have been active during human history.

Fig. 1. Map of the major satellite islands and archipelagoes and some of the main
mountainous areas of Sicily (1: Palermo Mts.; 2: Sicani Mts.; 3: Madonie Mts.; 4: Iblei
Mts.; 5: Mt. Etna).

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