Up to now, the Biodiversity Friend standard and the Biodiversity Indices have been applied in hundreds of farms in Italy, in Europe, and also in tropical environments, contributing to create in farmers, the true custodians of the territory, a new awareness of the importance of protecting biodiversity for the quality of products and for the perpetuation of life on earth.

Many of the readers of this volume will have found themselves wondering about the environmental quality of a protected area, or a region with different degrees of anthropization. Learning to “read the signs of biodiversity” is one of the main objectives of this manual.

From a perspective of active citizenship, the use of the Biodiversity Indices also allows one to understand how epiphytic lichens, aquatic macroinvertebrates, and soil fauna are useful in gaving information on the quality of air, water, and soil of a territory: from the abservation of their presence or absence, cach of us can evaluate in a simple way and autonomously the healthiness of the environment in which welive.

Specifically, the analysis of lichen communities present on tree trunks, of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities present in surface watercourses and of soil-dwelling invertebrate communities, can provide very useful information to evaluate anthropogenic impact on natural, rural and urban environments. Moreover, the contents of this manual may represent an effective educational tool to teach young people careful observation of nature, to discover its wonderful forms and to understand the state of alteration of an environment.

AUTHORS- The five authors of the volume are expert naturalists engaged in research activities at Museums, Unversities, and Research Institutes in Italy. In addition to scientific research, they are involved in teaching and dissemination acticities on the themes of sustainability and the conservation of biodiversity, which they also carry out through the publication of texts and articles of both scientific and popular character.

• Editor: WBA Project – Verona
• Edition: WBA Handbooks – Vol. 14
• Year: 2025
• Language: English
• Pages: 160
• Size: 15 x 21 cm
• ISBN: 978-88-902816-6-2
• ISSN: 1973-7815
• Binding: paperback

• Illustrations: 153 images (photos and drawings)

• Genre: scientific essay

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If you are a member, you can purchase the volume for 12.50 euros. Contact us at shop@biodiversityassociation.org and send us your purchase request.