Delimitazione di Regioni di Provenienza per la gestione dei Materiali Forestali di Base in Campania

Delimitation of Provenance Regions for the management of Forest Reproductive Materials in Campania.The 1999/105/CE Directive has set Provenance Regions as the standard European management approach of forest propagation materials (mainly for “Source Identified” and “Selected Materials”) . The Authors report about a method for establishing Provenance Regions for forest species in Mediterranean environments (partitive-ecologic approach). The method consists of an iterative two steps procedure: a scheme of Provenance Regions is first worked out on the grounds of environmental factors and technical qualifications, and then validated by statistical analysis (Discriminant Analysis) performed on bio-climatic and geo-lithologic data. The method, applied to region Campania, led to the definition of six Provenance Regions. The initially considered regions of the interior and higher elevation areas under more “oceanic” conditions, R5 and R6 appeared really homogeneous and were merged to form two sub-regions. The same method was applied to merge regions R1 and R2 in sub-regions. Anyway, because of the supposed higher differentiation among fractionated ranges of many southern species, these Provenance Regions should be kept distinct in order local Forest Genetic Resources will be preserved.