Actuopalynology and Mediterranean vegetation patterns along the littoral of southern Latium (Italy)

In dune environments the vegetation patterns reflect coenoclines, being indicative of coastal erosive processes, topography and caustic effects of salt aerosol. To standardize the pollen capture effectiveness the absorbed 137Cs was recovered to select the moss polsters already existng at the time of the Chernobyl event (1986). Ten surface samples have been collected along a 1 km long transect parallel to the coast to study the modern pollen rain of the 229 species present at Torre Astura (Rome). The palynological reliability with respect to occurrence has been tabulated for 44 taxa by means of various vegetational indices. The study of the plant distribution and pollen dispersal of nine psammophilous entities related to littoral dynamism shows encouraging results for spatial analyses of the middle-Tyrrhenian maquis tree-canopy development. This approach opens up new points-of-view on the relation between pollen deposition and coenology: the here proposed methodology can be used as reference in palaeoecological assessments.