Flora, vegetation and management of Fantine wood (Campomarino – CB).

The Fantine wood, together with the large area of inland sandy dunes, garigues, and wet hollows (called “Fantine”) surrounding it, and with the seaboard dunes and garigues between the Adriatic National road and the sea, represents the most important natural area of the “Foce Saccione-Bonifica Ramitelli” SCI (Habitat code number IT7282217) in the municipal district of Campomarino (CB). The wood is hygrophilous, partially flooded, dominated by elms (Ulmus minor), southern ashes (Fraxinus oxycarpa), Turkey oaks (Quercus cerris) and white poplars (Populus alba), belonging to the Carici remotae-Fraxinetum oxycarpae Pedrotti 1992 association. Wood margins are characterized by the presence of a mantle dominated by Phillyrea angustifolia and Myrtus communis. In the surrounding area there are different dune habitats with halo-xerophilous vegetation and Mediterranean garigues, together with several wet sandy hollows hosting many important taxa and coenosis considered as interesting both from an ecological and a phyto-geographical point of view. Dry sandy areas are characterized by grasslands with Alkanna tinctoria, Anchusa undulata, Verbascum sinuatum, Verbascum niveum, Evax pygmaea, Euphorbia terracina, Hyppocrepis ciliata, Ononis reclinata, Helianthemum salicifolium, Petrorhagia prolifera, Stipa capensis etc. Hollow margins, with wet sandy soils, are dominated by Carex divisa coenosis, while the deeper parts of the “Fantine” are colonized by different helophyte species, such as Carex acutiformis, Cladium mariscus, Iris psedacorus, Euphorbia palustris, Lythrum salicaria, etc (Taffetani 1990 e 1991; Taffetani & Biondi 1992). For what concerns management activities, serious damages to forest vegetation, flora and fauna were caused, at the beginning of 2008, by a landowner who fenced in a wide portion of the wood for animal pasture. Because of this enclosure it is actually impossible to access the area and to check the health status of elm trees affected by Graphium ulmi Schwarz., which have to be treated and monitored in order to prevent disease spread.