Effects of abandonment of land traditional management on species and phylogenetic diversity. A case study from the northern Appennine of eastern Tuscany.

The abandonment of the traditional agro-pastoral activities exposes herbaceous habitats to strong transformations, often with the ingression of shrub species that lead these communities toward very different vegetation types that are of less relevance from a conservation point of view. The study aims to investigate the floristic changes in these habitats related to both the management type and the different stages of vegetation dynamics after the abandonment of agro-pastoral activities in the eastern Tuscan Apennines. In addition, we also investigated the phylogenetic processes connected to the dynamics changes..