Apart from the environments from which they derive their name, found around the Mare Nostrum between Southern Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, Mediterranean-type climate environments are found in California, Chile, South Africa and South Western Australia.

Although each of these environments has its own specific flora and fauna, similar climate factors trigger similar adaptation strategies, generating the same extraordinary wealth of shapes, colours and tastes, albeit in different groups of organisms.

Some examples of this are the Australian wild tomato (Solanum orbiculatum) and the true tomato (S. lycopersicum), originally from South America. Despite their geographical separation, they are both notably well adapted to dry conditions, their fruit are very similar and both can be cooked and eaten.

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Lorenzo Cecchi | Rights reserved

However, the use of fire to clear space for grazing and agriculture coupled with exploitation of resources that were always concentrated in the same places wrought often irreversible changes in the environment.

The biggest changes were to habitats: the reduction of some ecosystems rather than others, soil erosion, introduction of exotic species, selective transformation of flora and fauna in line with human needs and the development of domesticated breeds and varieties.

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Plants such as grapevines and wheat, as well as olive, carob, fig, manna ash and almond trees, are as important to botanists as they are to the history of humanity.

These typically Mediterranean species are capable of withstanding hot dry summers while yielding generous amounts of fruit and the sugary, fatty or starchy foods basic to the human and animal diet.

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Manna produced by one of the many species of acacias of Australian bush or mallee (Acacia microbotrya)

Human activities have had a considerable impact on Mediterranean fauna. One example is the introduction of the goat (Capra hircus) to the island of Montecristo.

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Exemplars were brought to the island in ancient times, probably from livestock involved in early attempts at domestication, and still retain many characteristics of the wild West Asian ibex (Capra aegagrus), widely considered to be the direct ancestor of the domesticated species.

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Sheep, on the other hand, were among the first animals to be domesticated, probably as early as the start of the Neolithic period.
Undemanding, mild-mannered and very adaptable, sheep are possibly only second to goats in their ability to adapt to dry pastures and a wide variety of foods.

The mouflon (Ovis orientalis musimon) is another interesting case. As genetic research has shown, this typically Sardinian animal is in fact a descendant of ancient domesticated herds that later became wild.

Aromatic plants are often shrubs or woody species growing in rocky soil that have come to typify these environments thanks to the scent of the essences they developed for defensive purposes. They have become an integral part of the diet and culture of Mediterranean peoples.

Such plants include rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus), sage (Salvia officinalis), thyme (Thymus serpyllus), lavender (Lavandula stoechas and other species) and the curry plant (Helichrysum italicum and other species).

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Thymus serpyllus

Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus) in particular can sometimes be found as the prevalent plant in the Mediterranean coastal ecosystems it typifies.

Rosemary grows flat on the ground on Marettimo, one of the Aegadian Islands to the west of Sicily, clinging to the rocks and pushing its roots into them.
This adaptation allows the plant to streamline itself against the blustery winds of the Sicilian Channel.

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Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus)

Garrigue is another typical Mediterranean environment.
Here small and low bushes typically grow sparsely, with wide expanses of earth either bare or populated by herbaceous plants.

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Euphorbia spinosa on Monte Calvi in Campiglia Marittima, southern Tuscany. 

This environment is the degradation result of the Mediterranean maquis through fire or grazing.
Garrigue is mainly inhabited by plants that can tolerate aridity, with no single species tending to predominate over others.

The yellow alkanet (Alkanna lutea) is a therophyte endemic to Sardinia, Corsica and the island of Montecristo, with an annual cycle that makes it a unique species of its type. It blooms abundantly for a short period, releases dozens of seeds onto the granite sand and then dies, relying entirely on its seeds to survive the summer.

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Lorenzo Cecchi | Rights reserved

Alkanna lutea

Dwarf garlic (Allium chamaemoly) is a compendium of adaptations to aridity.
The fact that it is very small and stemless allows the plant to concentrate its resources, mostly to develop its reproductive organs.  It survives the summer season in the form of an underground bulb and is therefore defined as a bulbous geophyte.

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Dwarf garlic (Allium chamaemoly)

Plant adaptations to dry and sunny conditions include developing specialised structures on the leaves, such as hairs and trichomes to reflect light, as well waxy layers and thorns to reduce water loss. 

Drystone walls, first used to enclose property and create terraces for cultivation, can still be glimpsed tracing geometries and the contours of slopes, even in areas long since abandoned.

The stones laid one over another without cement provide a habitat for numerous plants as well as offering a welcome and complex shelter for many animals, such as arthropods and reptiles.

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Lorenzo Cecchi | Rights reserved

Two specimens of Kotschy’s gecko (Mediodactylus kotschyi) in the cracks in the masonry of an old building near Martinafranca (Murge Tarantine, Apulia)

For many wild species, drystone walls and the ruins of old buildings are often the only available alternative to natural shelters, making these artificial structures valuable guardians of biodiversity.
Deterioration of dry stone walls therefore also endangers biodiversity as traditional types of work disappear.

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Lacerta bilineata

Preserving and re-assessing the use of drystone walls is an excellent example of a sustainable strategy combining protection of the landscape and local cultural values with the goals of biodiversity conservation.

One example of this is the variety of habitats present in the Laterza ravine. The ravine consists of a deep canyon-like crevice cut by erosion into the limestone rocks.
The view from the edge of the ravine offers a fascinating range of colours and landscapes.

From the crops and garrigue at the top, layers of vegetation accompany the descending contours of the ravine to its floor.

Along the way, a succession of environments with very different features is populated by an equally wide range of plant and animal communities.

The latter include reptiles and insects that alternate their daytime activities between the shade or the shelter of a bush and the hot sun of the grassland.

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Nicola Destefano | Rights reserved

Italian three-toed skink (Chalcides chalcides)

Semi-arid Mediterranean environments are therefore a splendid example of how the development and prosperity of human civilisations derive mainly from the care and attention given to their relationship with the natural environment.