Pedodiversity

Abstract

In Chap. 6, dealing with pedodiversity of Italy, Edoardo A. C. Costantini, Roberto\ud Barbetti, Maria Fantappie` , Giovanni L’Abate, Romina Lorenzetti, and Simona Magini\ud illustrate the distribution of soil classes, mainly by means of maps. Soil regions on hills\ud are the most lithologically and climatically variable environments, and host the greatest\ud soil variability and endemisms. A vast majority of the WRB reference soil groups (25 out\ud of 32), as well as soil orders of Soil Taxonomy (10 out of 12) are represented in the main\ud Italian soil typological units (STUs), but the clear skewness and lognormal distribution\ud of STUs demonstrate the utmost endemic nature of many Italian soils. In particular,\ud more than a fourth of STUs belong to Cambisols, more than a half to only four\ud reference soil groups (Cambisols, Luvisols, Regosols, Phaeozems), and 88 % to nine\ud RSGs (the former plus Calcisols, Vertisols, Fluvisols, Leptosols, and Andosols), while\ud the remaining 16 RSGs are represented in 12 % of STUs. A similar trend is depicted by\ud considering single soil profile classification, although a larger number of main soil types\ud are represented as soil profiles than as STUs. In particular, there are profiles classified as\ud Albeluvisol, Anthrosol, Cryosol, Plinthosol, and Technosol of WRB, and Gelisols of\ud Soil Taxonomy, which are not correlated to a STU. Consequently, Ferralsols (Oxisols\ud for Soil Taxonomy) and Durisols are the only main kind of soils that have not yet been\ud found in Italy. Likewise RSGs, the distribution of WRB qualifiers shows an evident\ud concentration in relatively few cases, followed by a long tail. In particular, 138 out of the\ud 180 types foreseen by WRB are represented in Italy. Thus, it is possible to say that in\ud Italy there is about three-quarters of the global pedodiversity. Although the most\ud common qualifiers (that is Calcaric, Haplic, Skeletic, Eutric) are all related to the nature\ud of parent material and to incipient pedogenesis, a second group (namely Chromic,Calcic, Stagnic, and Luvic) indicates the main soil forming mechanisms that typify\ud current Italian pedogenesis

Soil indicators to assess the effectiveness of restoration strategies in dryland ecosystems

“…At the same time, the soil smaller moisture content controls decomposition rates, increasing the SOM residence time in drylands. Soils of Mediterranean steppe, for instance, may show a well-developed mollic horizon if they are not plowed (Soil Survey Staff, 1999;Costantini et al, 2013). SOM has an important role in determining the soil physical quality, and therefore, also in regulating the availability of water for vegetation.…”

Natural terroir units, Siena province, Tuscany

“…According to Costantini et al (2013), the province is subdivided into four soil regions (SRg, Figure 2 The main map derived from legacy data of the previous studies of Costantini, Pellegrini, Vignozzi, and Barbetti (2006a;Costantini et al, 2006b), aimed at viticultural zoning of the province of Siena and soil suitability for the Sangiovese cultivar grapevine.…”

Effects of climate, soil, forest structure and land use on the functional composition of the understorey in Italian forests

“…In this study, we considered Italy as a model region because it spans an extensive climatic gradient including three biogeographic regions (alpine, continental, and mediterranean) and has a high diversity of soil types due to the great variety of pedogenetic processes (Costantini et al., ). These conditions allow for a broad variety of forest types, from alpine coniferous forests to thermophilous broadleaf deciduous and evergreen forests.…”