Life on the burial mounds of southern Italy – ancient stone mounds as refuges for Mediterranean flora

Our latest article, with Rocco Labadessa as the first author, has been published. Here we were able to indulge our passion for the biodiversity sustained by ancient burial mounds in a new biogeographic region: the Mediterranean :)

The citation of the paper:

Labadessa, R., Vicario, S., Tarantino, C., Valkó, O., & Deák, B. (2026). Life in the graveyard: ancient stone burial mounds as refuges for Mediterranean grassland vegetation. Global Ecology and Conservation, e04361.

The paper is freely available on the journal’s homepage (please click here).

In the Mediterranean landscapes of southern Italy, stone-built mounds preserve the memory of the past. The nearly one hundred burial mounds of the San Magno necropolis were constructed around 2,700–2,800 years ago, between the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. However, these ancient structures are valuable not only from an archaeological and cultural perspective.

Ancient stone mound in the San Magno necropolis, from the birdseye view.

In a joint Italian–Hungarian study led by Rocco Labadessa (Institute of Environmental Intelligence and Technologies at the Italian National Research Council), we explored the potential role of these stone mounds in conserving threatened species of the Mediterranean flora. This question is particularly important because the region’s semi-natural dry grasslands have declined considerably and become increasingly fragmented over recent decades and centuries. The remaining habitats are further threatened by the abandonment of formerly widespread grazing practices and by the growing populations and increasing disturbance of wild boar.

We found that the rocky surfaces of the burial mounds provide excellent refuges for grassland species that prefer open habitats, while also protecting the soil from severe disturbance, as the stony ground is not particularly attractive to rooting wild boar. The small and varied habitats among the stones create distinctive microclimatic conditions that may also buffer the effects of heat and drought.

As a result, the mounds support more grassland plant species than the surrounding grasslands, including numerous perennial and habitat-specialist species. We also found species on the mounds that were entirely absent from their immediate surroundings. These included the southern Italian endemic feather grass Stipa austroitalica, which is recognized as a species of particular conservation importance under the European Union’s Habitats Directive. This suggests that the burial mounds may have preserved elements of formerly more extensive natural grassland vegetation over long periods of landscape change.

This picture shows very nicely the striking differences between the vegetation of the stone mound and the surrounding grassland matrix.

Although less than a metre high, these ancient structures now function as habitat islands in a profoundly transformed landscape. Protecting them therefore contributes to the conservation of both archaeological heritage and biodiversity. However, the mounds alone cannot safeguard nature: appropriate management of the surrounding grasslands and the maintenance of connections between habitats are equally essential.

The burial mounds of San Magno clearly demonstrate that monuments inherited from humanity’s distant past can also play an important role in nature conservation today.

Resilience of sown grasslands - our new paper in Ecological Solutions and Evidence

Our recent study by Réka Kiss  about the resilience of restored grasslands has recently been published in Ecological Solutions and Evidence.

Kiss, R., Lukács, K., Tóth, K., Tóth, Á., Godó, L., Deák, B., Valkó, O. (2026): Early sowing of multiple species supports the recovery potential of restored grasslands. Ecological Solutions and Evidence 7: e70247. https://doi.org/10.1002/2688-8319.70247

The paper is open access and can be freely downloaded from the journal website (please click here).

In this article, we explore why sowing grasses alone is not sufficient when aiming to establish species-rich grasslands, and why the early introduction of forb species is essential following land abandonment or sowing grass seeds. We examine all this from the perspective of restored grasslands, by evaluating the role of disturbance (i.e. ploughing) in grassland recovery. Our study has a clear practical implication: our results show that we can restore more resilient grasslands if the target forb species are sown together with the grasses, as early as possible.

This is the second study resulting from our common garden experiment that we established in 2014, and we run it until 2022. Between 2014 and 2019 we studied vegetation recovery after nine restoration treatments (combinations of grass and forb sowing, with joint and delayed sowing) and published the first results in Kiss et al. (2022). Then we introduced a severe experimental disturbance – ploughing – to the sown parcels to study resilience of the grasslands restored by different methods.

This was a very interesting study, but also one of our most demanding studies: besides the long-term survey (survey of the 144 plots twice per year for 8 years), we needed to do the yearly maintenance of the experimental site. This involved multiple mowing, raking, sowing, soil preparation. This was a huge work and many thanks to all the people who took part in that!

Restored grassland with large cover of Salvia nemorosa - before ploughing

Grassland restored by grass seed sowing - before ploughing.

The maintenance of this experiment was highly demanding, sometimes mowing was very challenging

EASAC report “Changing Wildfires in Europe” presented at the Cyprus Institute

On 22 January 2026 the Cyprus Institute, the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts, and the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) organized a public lecture and presentation of the EASAC report entitled Changing Wildfires - Policy Options for a Fire-literate and Fire-adapted Europe.

In the public lecture, we discussed the main findings of the EASAC report, emphasised the importance of preventive measures in wildfire governance, and also focused on the specific challenges of the Mediterranean region. The lectures were followed by fruitful discussion on these topics and on the relevance on the EU decision of establishing a Wildfire Hub in Cyprus. Many thanks to the organizers for making this super-important and interesting event possible!

The event was live-streamed and can be watched here (from 10:30). 

Please find below some brief information about the panel and the abstract of the event.

Convenor: Prof. Costas N. Papanicolas, President Emeritus, The Cyprus Institute, Director, Research Unit of Climate Crisis and Sustainable Development; The Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts

Panelists:

Prof. Thomas Elmqvist, Professor, Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University, Sweden and EASAC Environment Director

Dr. Orsolya Valkó, Research Group Leader, HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, Hungary

Prof. Efthymis Lekkas, Professor of Dynamic, Tectonic, Applied Geology, and Natural Disaster Management, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Mr. Kostakis A. Papageorgiou, Chief Conservator of Forests, Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development & Environment, Department of Forests

Abstract

“Suppressing fires alone is not sufficient. We need to address the root causes, strengthen efforts to combat climate change, invest in resilient landscapes, and actively engage society in learning to live with fire,” says Dr. Cathelijne Stoof, Co-Chair of EASAC’s Wildfires Working Group.

 

According to the newly published EASAC report Changing Wildfires in Europe, many regions across Europe are experiencing multi-year droughts, significantly increasing the likelihood of extreme wildfire events. On average, wildfires in the European Union currently burn approximately half a million hectares each year—an area roughly equivalent to half the size of Cyprus.

 

The event will examine the escalating wildfire risks across Europe, with a particular focus on the Mediterranean, and assess their implications for Cyprus, the Eastern Mediterranean region, and the proposed European Wildfire Hub. Topics covered will include wildfire risk reduction, prevention strategies, and building fire-resilient societies in Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Cyprus. Experts, policymakers, and stakeholders will convene to explore how EU and regional strategies can transition from reactive fire suppression toward proactive, risk-based land and landscape management.