Approccio alla caratterizzazione di un lembo di bosco vetusto: il caso di Monte Egitto (Monte Etna).

Old growth forests, i.e. forests which have achieved a remarkable age without or with a very limited disturbance, are nowadays subject of detailed studies in order to understand their characters and capacity of ecosystems services providing. In Sicily only few wooded areas areclassified as old growth forest, following the heavy land use change toward agriculture during the centuries. This paper reports the results of a study carried out to characterize the vegetationof a little crater on the Mount Etna, where a residual open wood of Quercus congesta (an endemicoak of Southern Italy) survived the year 1651 lava flows surrounding the crater. About35 years ago inside the crater some areas were planted with Calabrian Black Pine. As a consequencetoday there is a remarkable competition between trees of the two species. An integrated approach monitoring was adopted, taking into account both trees and understory (herbs, shrubs and tree regeneration) characters as well as bird fauna, in order to describe the current situation and monitor the effect of pine plantation thinning aimed at favouring oak regeneration and reducing pine-oak competition.