Palaeoecology and long-term human impact in plant biology

Human impact is a collective concept that requires a holistic approach. Human needs eventually caused the development of cultural landscapes that are at the base of the current landscapes. The papers included in this special issue are evidence that cooperation between different disciplines helps to understand the trend of environmental transformation from past to future. Palaeoecology studies ecosystems of the past and needs archaeology to deepen sociocultural intervention in environmental patterns. In a similar way, ecologists have to include the complexity of societies and economies into landscape ecology by adding principles of human ecology into sustainability science. A brief history of previous actions encouraging the integration of palynology, archaeobotany, archaeology, botany and ecology is reported. The application of integrated studies comes to a new point, the research on the Long-Term Human Impact.