Coastal rocky marine ecosystems are biodiversity hotspots threatened by anthropogenic pressure [1]. Benthic communities inhabiting shallow coasts can act as bioindicators of environmental disturbances. Their ability to structure themselves under a long-term anthropogenic disturbance, such as in the case of anthropized coasts, allows them to provide information not only about past conditions but also about the current state of the marine environment [2, 3].

In order to evaluate the relationships between the macrobenthic community biodiversity and the anthropogenic pressure, macroalgae and the associated macroinvertebrates (> 0.5 mm) from the upper infralittoral zone of the rocky Cilento coast (southern Italy), were collected. Samplings were carried out in July and December 2023, in 6 sites differing in the anthropogenic pressure (from harbors to protected areas), by sampling squares of 30x30 cm (5 replicates per site). Whole macroalgae biomass was determined as dry weight (75 °C until constant weight).

Among macroinvertebrates, a total of 6386 individuals in July and 4153 individuals in December were collected, belonging to Mollusca, Polychaeta, Crustacea, Echinodermata, Sipuncula and Nemertea. Positive correlations between macroalgae biomass and total number of macroinvertebrates (r=0.56; p<0.01), and in particular of Crustacea (r=0.66; p<0.001) and Sipuncula (r=0.63; p=0.001), were found. The values of the Shannon index were 1.64±0.24 in July and 1.60±0.29 in December with an Evenness of 0.72±0.06 in July and 0.71±0.08 in December. These values did not differ neither between the two seasons, nor among sites, highlighting that macrozoobenthic community in the studied area is only marginally affected by seasonality and anthropogenic pressure.

[1] Bianchi & Morri (2000). Marine Pollution Bulletin 40(5), 367-376

[2] Borowitzka (1972). Marine and Freshwater Research 23(2), 73-84

[3] Pinedo et al. (2007). Marine Pollution Bulletin 55(1-6), 126-135

Through an experimental approach aimed at evaluating the propagation of disturbance across a hierarchical progression of ecological systems, we demonstrated the coupling between low frequency electromagnetic fields (1^st mode of Schumann resonances) and system functioning at different levels of complexity. The alterations of ecological dynamics elicited by interfering anthropogenic electromagnetic fields were demonstrated to depend on system complexity, with increasingly clearer responses in moving from organisms to ecosystems.

Here, focusing at the ecosystem level, we aimed at evaluating how the complexity of functionally coupled processes may modulate the responses to electromagnetic disturbances. To this end, we studied the effects on litter decomposition of Schumann resonances variably interfered by 7.83 Hz – 15 ± 2 µT artificial fields. To highlight potentially small effects, the study was carried out under controlled conditions for up to 216 days, by exposing litter bags with holm oak leaves in mesocosms for different times (0, 15’, 30’), using a coil purposefully developed via finite element modelling. Decomposition was investigated in terms of rates of mass loss and of involved processes, i.e. microbial activity by means of CO₂ evolution and enzyme activities, estimating the effects through Bayesian multilevel modelling.

Results highlight that disturbance to Schumann resonances differentially affects enzyme activities and microbial respiration, with the type and amplitude of responses dependent upon process complexity. The interaction among these processes, each with specific dynamics, elicits non-linear, hormetic responses in litter decomposition that are buffered, in terms of amplitude, in respect to the underlying processes.

On the one hand, our research confirms the coupling between low frequency electromagnetic fields and the functioning of ecological systems. On the other hand, it sheds light on the role of complexity in modulating the propagation of disturbances among interacting processes and in buffering the effects they may elicit on ecosystem processes.

The intensification of extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall is among the most critical manifestations of climate change. Coastal lagoons, due to their shallow depths and the direct influence of freshwaters, can be considered as ecological sentinels of convective rainfall events. Indeed, convective rainfalls can cause sudden and extreme changes in lagoon waters and sediments which, in turn, can influence physiology and behavior of organisms. This could have cascading consequences on inter-specific interactions, possibly favoring allochthonous species invasion and stabilization. In the framework the project eINS - Ecosystem of Innovation for Next Generation Sardinia (CUP F53C22000430001- MUR Grant Assignment Decree No. 1056, we investigated whether salinity and turbidity anomalies caused by a major rainfall episodic event may influence allochthonous and native crabs in a coastal lagoon. To do this, we investigated the predation rates of the native Carcinus aestuarii and the allochthonous invasive Dyspanopeus sayi on the native bivalve Mytilus galloprovincialis, after exposure to different salinity and turbidity conditions, including values typically observed after a heavy rainfall. We report here that the native crab C. aestuarii showed a wider range of salinity values (10-35), within which it can feed, generally preferring smaller prey (valve length 10.1 -15.0 mm) and that it was severely disturbed under medium-high values of turbidity (100 and 300 NTU). In contrast, the alien crab D. sayi was able to feed within a narrower salinity range (25-35) and exploited prey of all sizes (valve length 10.1 -25.0 mm), discarding the larger ones only when subjected to the highest turbidity values (100 and 300 NTU). Our results suggest that, during sudden salinity anomalies, like those considered in our experiment, the native species, being apparently more adapt to tolerate better freshwater inflows, could overcome the allochthonous one, that, in turn, appears more tolerant to high turbidity levels.

Wind power is one of the fastest growing renewable energy technologies and there is a growing interest in the great potential of offshore wind energy, as offshore wind farms (OWFs) might overcome the main limitations of onshore wind parks (land availability, habitat modification and social acceptance). However, the expansion of OWFs has also boosted the interest on the related impacts on the marine environment and biodiversity. In this context, one of the objectives of the Wind In My Backyard project is to assess whether areas around the Island of Pantelleria, a small island with high potential for renewable energy production due to its location in one of the windiest areas in Italy, are also suitable for species of interest, which may experience negative impacts from the wind farm infrastructures. Ecological Niche Models, estimated using four different algorithms (generalized linear model, random forest, max entropy and supporting vector machine) were applied to predict and map habitat suitability to different species (six bony fish, one shark, three rays, one sea turtle and two dolphin). Combining outputs of habitat suitability, a sensitivity map to assess potential areas of higher sensitivity, due to the presence of multiple species, was created, highlighting a potential sensitive area extending along the northwest-southeast axis in the southern part of Pantelleria Island. Our study may be useful for the identification of potential sensitive areas, drive selection of suitable sites for wind farm installation and improving citizens' understanding of the complex processes involved in marine spatial planning.

Trawling on continental shelves disrupts benthic communities by altering sediments and increasing species mortality, favoring opportunistic over ecologically crucial long-lived species. An ecosystem-based approach, particularly trait-based analysis, is essential for understanding trawling's broader impacts on community functioning, especially in areas like the Mediterranean's Strait of Sicily, where extensive trawling necessitates multi-year management plans to prevent overexploitation. The study focused on an area between Malta and Sicily, known for significant trawling on sand and muddy sediments. Fishing intensity, assessed using satellite data, showed a gradient from coastline to offshore, peaking along the eastern continental shelf margin. Swept area ratio values ranged from 0.36 to 37.37, indicating substantial trawling pressure. Depth increased while fishing intensity decreased towards lower latitudes. During experimental trawl surveys, 8,191 individuals from 103 species were collected, with demersal species comprising 70%. Multivariate analysis assessed the impact of fishing intensity and environmental predictors on species and trait composition, revealing demersal species densities negatively affected by fishing intensity but positively correlated with bottom temperature. Benthic species densities showed weak negative impacts from fishing intensity but positive associations with temperature and chlorophyll concentration. Taxonomic diversity remained unaffected by fishing intensity, though chlorophyll concentration negatively affected demersal indices while enhancing benthic richness and diversity. Functional diversity indices showed no significant variation due to fishing intensity. Multivariate analysis indicated that spatial coordinates and studied variables explained only a small portion of taxonomic and functional composition variance. The study found minimal differences in bento-demersal assemblage composition along the observed fishing intensity gradient across the eastern Strait of Sicily's continental shelf. The assemblage composition appears influenced by chronic bottom trawling and bathymetric factors. These findings underscore the complexity of managing trawling impacts in ecologically sensitive marine environments.

Among the various stresses that affect aquatic ecosystems, plastic pollution is considered a serious, ubiquitous, and widespread environmental hazard. A growing body of works recognizes that plastics can act as a substrate for the development of the biofilm, hence promoting the colonization of various species. In this context, the term “plastisphere” has been created to define the diverse community growing on the surface of plastic debris. Microalgae are a significant part of this community, but not much research has been done on the photoautotrophic portion of the plastisphere. Here, we present the preliminary results of the 4^th Collaborative European Freshwater Sciences Project for Early Career Freshwater Researchers (“FreshProject”), the "PhytoPlastic" project. The project aims to investigate the temporal colonization of microalgae on different plastic polymers in lakes across a wide geographical scale. Two plastic polymers (low-density polyethylene and polyethylene terephthalate) and a glass substrate (as a control) were incubated for 30 days in 14 lakes across Europe. To assess the temporal and seasonal development of microalgae, samples were collected in each season after 3, 7, 15, and 30 days. Photoautotrophic biomass was quantified for each substrate by the estimation of chlorophyll a and ash-free dry mass. This project represents the first coordinated experiment conducted on a large spatial scale to investigate the interaction between microalgae and plastic. Beyond its scientific contributions, the project fosters collaboration among early-career researchers in freshwater sciences and lays the groundwork for future partnerships.

The community of Cystoseira sl. (Phaeophyceae) represent one most productive biocoenosis of Mediterranean intertidal coastal bedrocks, and among the best indicators of the health status of such ecosystems. They host an abundant and rich endophytic and epiphytic bacterial, that seem to contribute significantly in guaranteeing important physiological processes. However, it is still not clear their role in the survival of such macroalgae in case of anthropogenic stress and Climate Change. The aim of our work was to investigate the role of the epiphytic bacterial community associated to the most abundant Cystoseira species in determining its health status in different conditions of stress. The epiphytic bacterial community associated with Cystoseira sl. was characterized in three different zones of the Tavolara Punta Coda Cavallo Marine Protected Area (Sardinia, Italy), with different level of protection (A, B, and C). The distribution and the abundance of the species was evaluated, and the CARtography LITtoral communities index’ (CARLIT index) was applied for understanding the health condition. Secondly, some blades samples were collected along each transect and the quantitative and qualitative characterization of their associated epiphytic bacteria was conducted in the lab. Analyzing the results, no differences in the abundance and distribution of Cystoseira sl. were observed between differently protected zones. However some significant differences in both the abundance and composition of epiphytic communities associated to the blades of Cystoseira sl. were recorded, in relation to the levels of protection. Specifically, in the C zones, where disturbances are expected to be higher, an increase in the abundance of the bacterial community was observed and some of such bacteria appeared to be involved in seaweeds adaptation to stress, suggesting that the bacterial coat of the macroalgae of the Cystoseira genus can effectively play a key role in defining their health status in stressed conditions.

The Biodiversa+ RIPARIANET project aims to optimize the spatial biodiversity conservation of natural stream-riparian networks in order to provide practitioners with evidence-based guidance and approaches to conservation by mainly exploiting the increasing resolution of remote sensing information. The main purpose of the project is to assess riparian integrity and connectivity along the watercourse. To reach this goal, we investigate riparian networks within six river basins in Europe, along a geographical and climatic gradient to assess multiple biodiversity and stressors at the local scale, and scale-up this information to the network scale using geostatistical tools and advanced modelling. The conservation status and threats on riparian habitats will be evaluated along the Sävar River basin (Sweden), Queich River basin (Germany), Noce Stream and Tiber River basins (Northern and Southern Italy), Saja River basin (Spain), and Cávado River basin (Portugal). Particularly, data on river functionality (i.e., hydrology, decomposition, biofilm biomass accrual, and metabolism), diversity (i.e., microbes and fungi, macroinvertebrates, bats, and riparian vegetation) and stressors (i.e., pesticides, microplastics, and macroplastics) will be evaluated in different abiotic and biotic matrices. We expect to (i) identify protection gaps and ecological hotspots along riparian networks, based on multiple biodiversity, functional and connectivity criteria, and (ii) provide decision-support tools for decision-makers at local and EU levels.

Biodiversity is widely acknowledged as a fundamental provider of ecosystem services, influencing productivity, nutrient cycling, resilience and resistance to disturbances. Conversely, climate change has emerged as a significant force shaping biodiversity by affecting individual life histories. The impacts of climate change, such as rising temperatures, acidification, and sea level rise, drive physiological, demographic, and community-scale processes by causing shifts in the distribution and functioning of key species. During the Mediterranean hot seasons, intertidal organisms living on the edge between high and low tidal marks, are often subjected to significant environmental fluctuations. These fluctuations affect individual body temperatures, leading to short term (acclimation, phenotypic plasticity) or long term (adaptation, selection, changes in distribution) responses. The Mediterranean mussel, Mytilus galloprovincialis (Lamarck, 1819), represents a key and valuable species in marine ecosystems and an important bioindicator for environmental changes. These mussels have been extensively used as model organisms for physiological, genetic and ecological studies. They are included in the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, Descriptor 9, EU 2008), and are recognised as useful site-specific bio-indicators to meet the EU Good Environmental Status (GES). In this study, individual performances were investigated in terms of specific thermal tolerance to frame the effect of temperature on metabolic machinery functioning. Once sampled, M. galloprovincialis specimens were subjected to 14 different temperatures, ranging from 8°C to 34°C, with respiration rates measured as a proxy for metabolism. The results revealed a left-skewed curve, with a T_opt at 26.7 °C, classifying M. galloprovincialis as a thermo-tolerant species well-adapted to warmer waters. This may explain its global expanding range in response to rising temperatures. Understanding the thermal tolerance mechanisms of this species is essential for predicting the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity and for developing conservation strategies.

Biodiversity, ecosystems and human well-being are strictly joined under a One Health perspective, which represents a cost-effective, sustainable, transdisciplinary, and practical strategy for attaining optimal health for people, animals and the environment.

Worldwide, ecological perturbations caused by biotic invasions have been identified as a growing threat to all these sectors, with invasive alien plants causing important biodiversity loss, and altering environmental quality, ecosystem services and socio-economic conditions.

In Europe, a very high number of established alien species was recorded, with temperate and Mediterranean regions generally more invaded than those occurring in arid and warm ones. In this context, and with a special focus on urban areas (often considered “hotspots of plant invasion”), peninsular Italy represents a model-territory to investigate aliens and their effects on both the environment and human societies.

As part of ongoing studies on flora and vegetation of the Lazio region (central Italy), we had the opportunity to verify the incipient or current invasion of several taxa and their negative effects on the environment and human well-being. Some examples are presented, including alien plant taxa negatively affecting 1) floristic richness and composition of vegetation communities in freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems, 2) priority habitats, 3) trophic networks, 4) traditional agriculture, 5) human health, and 6) landscape identity.

In accordance with national and European regulations on the conservation of nature (e.g. EU Regulation 1143/2014, which sets out rules to prevent and mitigate the impact of alien species on biodiversity), and the One Health approach (recognizing the biodiversity role for mitigating heat, noise, and air pollution), a sound and detailed knowledge of floras, with a special focus on aliens, their distribution, ecological preferences, and threats caused to native taxa, represents a fundamental base to manage landscape, carrying out actions for control/reduction and, when possible, complete eradication of most damaging populations.

Wetlands are considered environments of pivotal importance due to the multiple ecosystem services provision. Notwithstanding covering only ∼3% of the Earth’s surface, peatlands are a precious component of natural capital by constituting the largest terrestrial carbon sink (∼30% of the global soil carbon) and an essential freshwater source. However, the effects of climate change coupled with direct human impacts have induced peat degradation further exposing this ecosystem to a high fire risk. Nowadays peatlands, including those in the boreal, tropical, and temperate biomes, are experiencing this ecological upheaval.

In the past five years in the UK, the number of fires has increased by ~60% compared to 2015-2019, largely affecting raised and blanket bogs. This research aimed to investigate the medium-term (~5 years) effects of the 2018 fire in a peatland within The Roaches Nature Reserve (southeastern sector of the Peak District National Park and Special Area of Conservation-UK0030280). Specifically, the study evaluated the soil recovery status by comparing several peat characteristics at increasing distances (80 m, 160 m; 240 and 320 m) from the control unburnt area and toward the fire ignition point.

Here, remote sensing analysis was employed to assess fire severity, revealing high-severity fire that predicted alterations in soil characteristics. Indeed, soil analysis results highlighted deacidification, reduced water content and decreased organic carbon content in the burned peat long-lasting five years post-fire. Consequently, microbial biomass was also affected as showed by the alterations found in microbial carbon and nitrogen, which have not yet recovered the values observed in the control.

Considering that peatland conservation is critical to addressing climate change, this research demonstrated the necessity of developing specific management strategies to effectively support postfire recovery such as preventive measures, rewetting and replanting.

Biological interactions are one of the main factors influencing the distribution and abundance of species worldwide. Seagrasses represent important shallow-water habitats all around the world and provide crucial ecosystem goods and services to humans. Thanks to their structural complexity, they support heterogeneous populations and interact with associated benthic invertebrates (e.g., sea anemones, isopods, gastropods) and fish populations, with which they establish complex relationships that influence the performance and fitness of the involved organisms. Here, a systematic review was performed to investigate the existing potential biotic interactions between seagrasses and epibionts-epiphytes on a global scale. A complex search string was created and ran in the online databases Scopus and WoS, yielding a total of 43 final outcomes in a temporal range between 1987 and 2024. Results showed pro and cons of different types of biotic interactions (mainly symbiosis, including mutualism and commensalism) among these habitat formers and the associated epibionts and epiphytes. The review revealed that the most studied interactions referred to Posidonia oceanica (Delile) L. and Zostera marina L. providing refuge and habitat to different epiphytes and epibionts. Reviewed studies also highlighted the importance of epiphytes, their potential role in the growth, nutrient dynamics and their implications in the light absorption for seagrasses. Also, epibionts such as sea anemones may chemically defended seagrasses from predation, therefore their mucous can coat seagrass leaves and obstruct sunlight absorption. Understanding the various types of biotic interactions and studying how they can influence the performance of the species involved is of vital importance in the current and future context of climate change.

Mediterranean wildfires have increased significantly in recent decades due to climate change. Recently, fires also have negatively impacted historically scarcely affected forests dominated by species that lack specific fire-adaptive traits, such as Mediterranean mountain beech forests. In this case, the resilience of the whole ecosystem to fire could be low with consequent long-term effects also on soil microbial community. This plays a key role in providing essential ecosystem services, such as the regulation of nutrient cycling, and is particularly sensitive to changes in soil physical and chemical properties induced by wildfire. This study aims to evaluate the effects of 2017 wildfire on soil microbial community in a burned beech forest included in Site of Community Importance “Dorsale dei Monti Lattari” IT8030008 (HD 92/43/EEC). Changes between burned and unburned plots, two, four, and six years after fire, were analyzed for total microbial biomass and fungal mycelium, fungal percentage of microbial biomass, microbial activities (soil respiration, N mineralization, nitrification), and some chemical properties (pH, electrical conductivity, cation exchange capacity, total N, total organic C, extractable and mineralizable C). Neither microbial properties nor total organic C appeared affected by fire during the study period. The decrease in cation exchange capacity, N and extractable C found two years after wildfire was not recorded again four and six years later. Over the years, only an increase in pH and decrease in electrical conductivity were observed in burned than in unburned soil. Our findings indicate that fire did not affect main soil functions on the medium-term probably because of the fast regrowth of plants (at first, mainly annual herbaceous plants, then partially replaced by perennials and Fagus sylvatica seedling) that protected soil immediately after fire. Therefore, in absence of further disturbances, a recovery of beech forest, across a long time of ecological succession, may be expected.

In this study we considered five Pleuronectiformes flatfishes as bioindicators against the presence of microplastics in the marine environment. Given their ecology and behaviour, these species are strictly related to the seafloor, the last sink for anthropogenic litter. Flatfishes were caught during an experimental fishing survey in the Gulf of Patti, a partially protected area (no-take zone for trawl fishery since 1990) off the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea. Overall, we examined 13 Arnoglossus laterna (mean TL 11.8 ± 0.9 cm), 5 Arnoglossus rueppelii (mean TL 9.6 ± 1.2 cm), 10 Lepidorhombus boscii (mean TL 20.3 ± 5.7 cm), 13 Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis (mean TL 24.2 ± 7.6 cm), and 24 Citharus linguatula (mean TL 17.6 ± 4.1 cm). Stomachs were subjected to chemical digestion to isolate plastic particles. Once isolated, particles were counted and categorized by shape, colour, size, and their polymeric nature was identified through FT-IR spectroscopy technique. Overall, 37 plastics particles were found in 28 flatfishes (%O = 43.1%). More than 97% belonged to microplastic category (<5 mm) and only one mesoplastic was found in the stomach of L. whiffiagonis. In details, microplastics were recorded in 5 A. laterna (%O = 38.5), 1 A. rueppelii (%O = 20), 1 L. boscii (%O = 10), 9 L. whiffiagonis (%O = 69.2), and 12 C. linguatula (%O = 50). Grey (21.6%) and transparent (16.2%) particles had the highest frequency of ingestion. Fibers were the most common microplastics in all the investigated species (70%), followed by fragments (22%). The main identified polymer was polyethylene (17.6%), followed by rubber and polyester (all having 5.9%). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evidence of microplastic ingestion in four of our selected target species in Mediterranean waters. Our insights call for further investigations to better understand the threat of plastics on demersal habitats.

Mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) represent the most important species for the Italian shellfish production. Production comes mainly from sea-farms and from wild populations in the northern western Adriatic Sea. In the recent years, both farmed and wild mussels showed problems with meat loss and increased shell fragility, which negatively affect their quality and market value. Since farming techniques have remained unchanged and wild populations are similarly affected, environmental factors may be the cause of these effects. The main goals of this study, under the PRIN-PNRR Project ENDRIMUS, are to identify the main environmental and biological factors affecting the quality of farmed and wild mussels along a latitudinal gradient on the Adriatic coast, and to provide farmers with information for the future development of mussel farms. Among the environmental factors, salinity, total alkalinity and DIC (dissolved inorganic carbon) varied among sites, with lower values towards South. The nutrient concentrations also highlighted a decreasing gradient from North to South (nitrates from 12.4±5.1 to 4.4±0.01 µM) in winter when the influence of northern river flows was more significant. In spring, the concentrations appeared more homogeneous across all investigated areas. A decreasing trend of chlorophyll a (from 6.4±1.1 to 0.9±0.1 mg/L) towards South was found. Target phytoplankton group, as Skeletonema spp., Pseudo-nitzschia spp. and Scrippsiella spp., abundances in mussel tissues estimate by molecular qPCR showed values of 820±138, 180±54 and 47±7 cells/g of tissue, respectively, reflecting taxa retrieved in phytoplankton assemblages. All the mussel samples showed seed presence, likely settled in winter with the settlement season extending until spring when specimens of 2-4 mm TL were found without differences due to the latitudinal gradient or between farmed and wild mussels. These are preliminary results obtained by the two seasonal campaigns in the NW Adriatic Sea helping the interpretation of this complex phenomenon affecting Adriatic mussels.

Forest management practices focused mainly on increasing forest productivity and growing biomass stock but not preserving soil. These practices can influence both soil chemical-physical properties and microbial communities, which play an important role in ecosystem functioning through the decomposition of organic matter, and carbon and nutrient cycling. Consequently, disturbance affecting soil microbial community may impact forest ecosystem and provided services.
The study aimed to assess if forest management preserves soil microbial community, both in terms of functions and metabolic potential. At this aim, two forest systems (beech and turkey oak) under different managements (coppice and high forest) were selected in the protected natural area of Matese Mountain (Southern Italy), and the soil microbial community was monitored along one year (summer, autumn, winter and spring). The soil microbial community was investigated for six enzymatic activities (arylsulfatase, phosphatase, laccase, glucosidase, glucosaminidase, FDA activities) and for metabolic fingerprint by Biolog EcoPlates™ method (average well color development, AWCD) based on the ability of microbial community to degrade a wide range of carbon substrates.
In soil under turkey oak, the results showed significant differences between forest managements only in arylsulfatase activity in summer, with values higher in high forest respect to coppice. In soil under beech, significant differences between forest managements, with higher value in coppice, were found for: FDA and glucosidase activities in summer and spring; laccase and phosphatase activities in summer; glucosaminidase and arylsulfatase activities in spring and autumn, respectively.
AWCD showed higher values under coppice with respect to the high forest, in both forest systems in summer. Higher AWCD values under high forest were found in soil under turkey oak, in winter and spring.
The results will suggest what forms of forest management to use whose impacts on soils are low enough to be considered sustainable.

Bottom trawling is among the most severe and concerning anthropic activities altering benthic marine ecosystems worldwide. Nonetheless, the most often absence of control (untrawled) conditions has led to conflicting outcomes of trawling impacts studies.

To provide insights on trawling impacts, we tested the null hypothesis by which quantity, biochemical composition, nutritional quality, extracellular enzymatic activities, degradation rates and turnover time of organic matter (OM) in coastal marine sediments do not vary across a bottom trawling intensity (BTI) gradient, as determined by Swept Area Ratio (SAR) data. Sediments were collected in October 2023 from seven sites characterized by low (SAR <2 y^-1), intermediate (2 ≤ SAR ≤4 y^-1), high (SAR >6) BTI. At each site 3 independent corers were collected by means of a multiple corer and the top 1^st cm analyzed for protein, carbohydrate, lipid and phytopigment contents as well as for aminopeptidase and b-glucosidase activities.

Contents of all organic compounds, but proteins, varied among the three BTI conditions, with values in sites with intermediate and high BTI unexpectedly higher than those in low BTI conditions. The algal fraction of biopolymeric C (a proxy of OM nutritional quality) and the protein turnover time did not vary across the BTI gradient, while both enzymatic activities and the cumulative C degradation rates were higher in the most disturbed sites.

Our results, confirming previous findings in shallow coastal ecosystems, suggest that intermediate and high BTI could cause a local increase in sedimentary organic loads, though with limited variations in OM biochemical composition and nutritional quality for benthic consumers. Apparently, the mechanical disturbance in sediments exposed to most intense trawling activities stimulates OM degradation, which is, however counterbalanced by the increased OM contents, likely due to re-depositional patterns of resuspended material.

The Calabrian coasts are internationally renowned as a place with a high degree of biodiversity, hosting a diverse range of marine and terrestrial ecosystems that need to be preserved and maintained as much as possible. Despite the absence of large industrial activities or large metropolies the anthropogenic impact represents a threat for this fragile oasis of life. Among several forms of pollution, also the biological one, even under the strong pressure induced by the pandemic period, began to be perceived as a very serious threat to man and the environment, together with the chemical contamination. To date, researchers are interested in deepen their occurrence, the biodegradation routes, bioaccumulation processes, and the short-term and long-term effects in the marine environment. Unfortunately, coastal zone monitoring programs are not always well implemented and this leads to poor environmental quality control. For these reasons, biological and chemical contamination represent a theme of overwhelming concern, as it is a potential threat to all marine species and a serious danger for human health. The present massive monitoring study was aimed at investigating the presence of biological and chemical contaminants in the marine environment of the Calabrian coasts. To pursue this objective, a sampling plane of water and sediments from different sites of the Calabrian area was employed to detect critical issues of the wastewater purifying system on the territory regional. In parallel, next generation sequencing approach was applied on selected samples of water and sediment to characterize the taxonomic compositions of microbial communities. The results detected several criticities among the sampling sites, due to obvious contamination of biological and industrial origin. The presence of Vibrio spp. and E. coli was evidenced in several samples, suggesting the need for more attention to monitoring to protect the environment.

Alien plant species invasions are among the top five causes of biodiversity loss, significantly reducing the abundance, diversity, and fitness of native ones. Alien plants alter native community composition through competition and allelopathy and through changes in soil properties by releasing root exudates and organic matter, impacting soil biota. While the effects on soil microbial communities are well-documented, impacts on soil microarthropods remain controversial and context-dependent. This research aimed to fill this gap by evaluating the impact of two alien species, Robinia pseudoacacia L. and Ailanthus altissima Mill., on soil microarthropod communities. Additionally, microarthropod communities under these alien species were compared to those under two native plant covers belonging to mature (Quercus ilex) and early (shrubs) stages. In autumn 2023, twelve sites within Vesuvius National Park (three for each plant cover) were selected to sample and extract microarthropods. Microarthropods were assessed for density, richness, diversity, and the soil biological quality (QBS-ar) index. Collembola were identified at the species level, assessed for density, richness, and diversity, and categorized into ecological forms (euedaphic, hemiedaphic, and epiedaphic). The preliminary results reveal that the two alien species exert contrasting impacts on soil microarthropod communities. Specifically, A. altissima enhanced the density, richness, and diversity of both microarthropods and Collembola, as well as the QBS-ar index, showing a community to those found under Q. ilex. In contrast, under R. pseudoacacia, microarthropod biodiversity was significantly lower compared to A. altissima, showing a community similar to that found under shrubs. Furthermore, under A. altissima and Q. ilex, Collembola were evenly distributed across the investigated eco-morphological categories. Conversely, under R. pseudoacacia, euedaphic Collembola dominated (60%) the community. In conclusion, A. altissima showed a microarthropod community similar to a native mature stage, whereas R. pseudoacacia showed a community similar to early native stage, exhibiting contrasting results.

Over the last decade, the Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetric approach widely increased its applications. Currently it represents a valuable, cost-effective and innovative tool also for the investigation of underwater environments. Underwater photogrammetry allows non-destructive sampling and repeatable measurements, digitally recreating the geometry of marine sceneries from sets of overlapping photographs taken from different points of view. Main outcomes of this method are digital products such as 3D models, Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and orthomosaics, bearing both morphometric as well as ecological information and allowing to obtain high-resolution and lasting records of habitat and communities’ characteristics over ecologically relevant spatial scales. The SfM approach has been tested over the bio-geogenic outcrops scattered throughout the Northern Adriatic Sea seabed, locally known as “tegnùe” or “trezze”. In this coastal region, very high turbidity is generally found; hence, this work highlights the potential of underwater SfM even in limited visibility conditions. Photogrammetric surveys were performed since 2022, in part within the framework of Interreg IT-SI TRETAMARA and TRECap projects, over test areas located in Tegnùe di Porto Falconera SAC, near Caorle (Venice). Surveyed areas span between 100-1000 m², with depth ranging from 6 to 10 m. Specific protocols for low visibility had to be developed. Very high-resolution (below cm) DEMs and orthomosaics were produced. Preliminary analyses were performed on these datasets to characterize landforms as well as epibenthic communities, allowing an explorative assessment of distribution, abundance and diversity of epibenthic organisms in relationship to main habitat features. Moreover, initial tests were conducted to assess changes between subsequent surveys over time on selected sub-areas. In perspective, the approach is effective in assessing the fine effects of anthropogenic and natural disturbance on species and habitats throughout time at very high spatial resolution, even in high-turbidity coastal waters.

“Plastics” are a multifaceted group of emergent contaminants in aquatic systems whose effects can be detrimental at cellular, individual and ecosystem levels. Their ubiquity and persistence in the environment need research to further our understanding on their path and to establish risk thresholds. This work overviews our scientific contributions investigating macroplastics (plastics > 5 mm; MAPs), microplastics (between 5 mm and 0.001 mm; MPs), and nanoplastics (< 0.001 mm; NPs) in aquatic ecosystems (freshwater, transitional and marine) over the past 5 years. In detail, plastic occurrence, spatial-temporal distribution patterns and effects on micro and macro-organisms (plants and animals) were evaluated using field or laboratory studies. We found that hydrometeorological conditions regulated the input and mobilization of MAPs in rivers, modulating their discharge into the sea. While drifting downstream, some MAPs stayed entrapped in aquatic and riparian vegetation; depending on plant species, habits, life-forms, community diversity and structure. We observed that drifting MAPs were vectoring macroinvertebrates, vegetal organisms and MPs, facilitating their dispersal. In this sense, MAPs can also host diatom community: a one-year experiment on virgin MAPs placed in a wetland highlighted the effects on productivity and diversity. Regarding MPs in wetlands, we detected MPs in native invertebrates and invasive species, initiating investigations using stable isotopes. We investigated MPs ingestion by fish (occurring especially during feeding) and filtration by bivalves in both fresh and marine ecosystems; the latter were evaluated as good biomonitoring sentinels. Finally, our laboratory experiments showed that under exposure conditions, MPs and NPs cause sub-individual detrimental effects that vary according to the sensitivity of the organism considered (bivalves, hydroid polyps, planarians and diatoms). Similarities and dissimilarities detected between freshwater, transitional, marine ecosystems on responses to plastic exposure and spatial-temporal patterns will be discussed to contribute sparkling debate on sustainable management of aquatic ecosystems.

This study aims to investigate how brown (Dictyota dichotoma var. intricata (C. Agardh)), green (Cladophora rupestris (Linnaeus) Kützing), and red (Jania rubens (Linnaeus) JV Lamouroux) macroalgae species living in a coastal zone of Campi Flegrei caldera (Pozzuoli Gulf, Italy) coordinate structural and functional traits for taking advantage of the habitat’s environmental resources in spring and summer. This research may be of potential interest in providing baseline data for these algae and understanding the capability of different species to cope with the sudden environmental changes observed in the last decades. Using a field and laboratory approach, we monitored physico-chemical variables at the investigated site (water quality, temperature, pH, salinity, and irradiance), functional (photosynthetic efficiency, chlorophyll content, and antioxidant properties) and structural features (carbohydrate, area and dry matter content) of thalli. The results evidenced that during spring and summer, Cladophora and Dictyota exhibited better photosynthetic efficiency and higher values of pigments, carbohydrates, polyphenols and flavonoids than Jania, indicating a better light harvesting and utilization in carbon assimilation, as well as greater investment in antioxidant defenses. Cladophora and Jania showed a higher thallus dry matter content, which indicates a higher partitioning of carbon into structural biomass, favouring the resistance to mechanical and biotic stresses in these species. Conversely, Dictyota presented the highest specific thallus area and tannin concentration, suggesting a greater carbon allocation to photosynthetically active tissues and chemical defences than structural components. The overall data indicate that the different macroalgae species adopt distinct strategies to optimize the "trade-off" between the physiological cost of photosynthesis and the allocation of resources to protection/defence mechanisms. The ongoing investigations during the next seasons will provide further insight into adaptations and ecological dynamics of macroalgae in this coastal habitat.

In the context of climate change and sustainable development, under the crucial perspective of an increasing pressure from human impacts, long-term conservation of mountain areas is a key strategy to improve ecosystem resilience to global warming.

In the present study we evaluated the role of water availability on CO₂ fluxes exchange, net ecosystem exchange (NEE), ecosystem respiration (ER) and gross primary production (GPP) in the Levionaz Plain, a high mountain grassland located in the Gran Paradiso National Park (Italian Alps). CO₂ fluxes were measured by the accumulation chamber method, and soil volumetric water content (VWC) was used as proxy for water availability. Fluxes responses to different hydric regimes were established by comparing artificially irrigated (IN) and not irrigated (OUT) plots during two different years (2022, 2023), which showed different drought conditions. In particular, we detected that in 2022 was the most severe drought event recorded in the last 17 years.

Results revealed that under drought conditions, water availability plays a key role in the ecosystem exchange of CO₂. ER and GPP fluxes showed different responses in the two plots, with GPP most affected, and with significant differences detected in 2022, where higher values were measured in the IN plots for all fluxes. In 2023, only GPP and NEE showed significant differences between IN and OUT areas, while ER was not sensitive to irrigation. Generalized linear models highlighted that VWC was a dominating driver in the driest 2022 for both ER and GPP, but not in 2023. GPP demonstrated high sensitivity to VWC over the two evaluated years, being the response to water availability in the driest 2022 more pronounced than that of ER.

This study provides insights for managing alpine grassland, suggesting that strategic, low-level irrigation during droughts can sustain productivity, offering a conservation strategy to mitigate extreme drought impacts.

In organisms living in highly variable environments, a strong phenotypic variability within populations is expected due to plastic responses to natural environmental variation. However, this is not commonly observed in nature. Here, we focused on the potential compensatory effects which might arise from the interaction between behavioural and morphological trait plasticity. These traits are remarkably sensitive to environmental conditions, and compelling studies showed that behavioural plasticity can influence individual life history traits such as body size or shape. In microcosm experiments, we manipulated saline concentration and analysed plastic responses in body size, pupal behaviour and carry-over effect across developmental stages in the sea rock-pool mosquito Aedes mariae. Analysing morphological traits, we found that larvae developed under increasing salinity conditions were smaller than larvae developed under constant conditions. Smaller body size at the pupal stage was also observed, testifying the occurrence of carry-over effects from larval to pupal stages. On the contrary, no differences were observed between adult sizes developed under the two salinity conditions. Analysing behavioural traits, we found that higher salinity promoted plastic changes in pupal diving behaviour. Under increased salinity pupae spent 20.6% less time underwater and performed fewer abdominal contractions than pupae under constant conditions. Because pupal energy expenditure is proportional to the time spent underwater, we suggest that the plastic pupal behaviour promoted compensatory growth, breaking down the carry-over effect from the pupal to the adult stage. This study highlights that plasticity at multiple traits in immature stages can affect carry-over and, ultimately, lead to the convergence of the adults' phenotypes.

From a conservation perspective, landscape genomic approaches have been mostly limited to assessing how structural landscape features influence functional connectivity within populations. Here, we explore the potential of landscape genomic data in the context of area-based conservation. Area-based conservation is by far the most successful strategy in addressing the ongoing global biodiversity loss. A key step in this approach is the designation of optimal zoning schemes that effectively integrate biodiversity protection with societal needs. Using restriction site-associated DNA (RAD) sequencing, we investigated the landscape genomic structure of the Italian stream frog Rana italica in the Aspromonte National Park. Population structure analyses revealed a substructure among the southern, central and northern areas of the park. Furthermore, by applying a moving-window approach, we generated maps of genetic diversity that showed higher diversity in the northernmost part of the national park. Surprisingly we found a counterintuitive pattern of lower levels of diversity within strictly than within mildly protected areas of the park. The ongoing study of functional connectivity within the park and its surrounding areas will allow us to understand how natural or artificial landscape elements influence intraspecific biodiversity patterns within and between the zones of the park and to provide fundamental knowledge to improve current zonation scheme.

The loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) is a globally distributed species and commonly found in the Mediterranean Sea. The main nesting beaches have been described in the Levantine basin, northern Africa and Ionian Sea, however, in the last decade, an increasing number of nesting turtles of unknown origin have been recorded along the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. In this study, we used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis of samples from dead embryos collected in C. caretta different nests and from stranded individuals in Tuscany and Latium to provide a preliminary description of the ongoing colonization of the Tyrrhenian coast.
Whole DNA was extracted from samples collected between 2012 and 2023. We sequenced the mtDNA control region of 64 individuals. Of these, a subset of 12 turtles had the whole mitochondrial genome sequenced and assembled. Previously published mitogenomes from our research group were included in the analysis. Haplotypes and haplogroups were assigned based on networks reconstruction and published literature.
Mitogenomic haplotypic diversity was higher than control region haplotypic diversity and a single widespread mtDNA control region haplotype was split in five mitogenomic variants. All the haplotypes recorded in nesting sites belonged to the haplogroup already known in literature as the only one represented in Mediterranean rookeries, while half of the haplotypes recorded in stranded animals belonged to the Atlantic haplogroup.
Our results indicate that attempts to colonize Tuscany and Latium seashores are most probably made by turtles from the Mediterranean, while Atlantic juveniles reach the Mediterranean to forage and for development but not for reproduction. Whole mitogenome sequence analysis also revealed a higher number of maternal lineages in the Tyrrhenian Sea with respect to single genetic markers, advocating the potential of mitogenomic analysis in population ecology studies.

Human tumor cell populations are comparable to communities of individuals within an ecological system, allowing for the application of ecological theories in cancer research. The exploration of group phenotypic composition in cancer - hallmarks of cancers - has highlighted the impact of individual cell traits on the fitness of both the cell and the population, to understand new perspectives on tumor progression and metastasis. Here, we want to illustrate how certain ecological theories can be applied to study some characteristics of tumor cell populations, in particular metabolism and the tumor microenvironment (TME).

Coasts are hotspots of endangered Biodiversity in need of effective conservation and monitoring activities. We explored the potential of a Citizen Science (CS) generalist project called Wild Coast Adriatic (WCA) (https://sites.google.com/view/wild-coast-adriatic/attività-e-risultati?authuser=0) for a brief assessment of exotic species on the central Adriatic coast. WCA is a CS multi-taxa project supported by the iNaturalist platform that has been active since 2020 and includes the seashore of the Molise and Abruzzo regions embracing several sites of conservation interest (LTER: Long Term Ecological Research, N2K network, coastal protected areas).

We extracted from WCA the 139 records reporting aliens referable to 50 species. 94 records are of Invasive Alien Plants (IAP) of 15 taxonomic families (Asteraceae 28% and Fabaceae 10%) and 29 species coming from America (74%) and Africa (13%). 15 plant records are of two species of Union Concern (Acacia saligna, Ailanthus altissima). 45 reports are of alien fauna relative to 21 species coming from Asia (35%), North America (26%), and South America (18%). The most represented taxa are Insects (43%), Mollusks (24%), and Mammals (9%). 17 reports are of three aliens of Union Concern (Myocastor coypus, Trachemys scripta, Gambusia holbrooki).

From 2020 to 2023, the number of observations increased. Observations are evenly distributed across all seasons, with autumn recording the highest number of alien reports (43).

Alien species are heterogeneously distributed along the coast, with more records in southern Abruzzo. Most records (85) are outside protected areas. 54 records are inside N2K and LTER sites.

The considerable number of records of non-native species highlights the potential of CS to depict the distribution and spread of exotic species in coastal areas.

Information technologies have reshaped teaching and learning in schools, and consequently, the ways we approach education. Nowadays, schools make significant use of instructional technologies as a support for inclusive learning. In Italy, ecology is not a study topic in itself but is embedded in civic educational curricula for both primary and secondary school cycles. In this context, the initiative “EcoLogicaCup” represents an opportunity based on a web platform, for schoolkids to participate to a non-formal learning path about ecological issues. It is a national online competition open to students from primary to high schools, aiming to stimulate the interest of youngest generations towards ecosystems and ecological sustainability. Every year different ecological topics are available on the LifeWatch platform for participants to study, exercise and finally challenge themselves to be the winners, answering questions organized around 5 difficulty levels. This implies that participants must learn about the topic and related key concepts. Schools have to officially join the competition, though single classrooms can be enrolled, depending on teachers’ availability to engage. The topic proposed for 2024 edition was ‘Sandy Beaches’. Sandy beaches are fascinating ecosystems connecting land and sea, providing several ecosystem services yet highly impacted by anthropogenic pressures. Given the large coastal extension of Italy (about 8,000km), sandy beaches are key ecosystems to be protected for both their ecological value and the economic resource they represent. EcoLogicaCup results pointed at a higher occurrence of incorrect answers in middle-schools compared to the high schools, though no incorrect answer was recorded for the “ecological value” set of questions. Primary schools’ engagement also resulted lower than middle and high schools. Overall, this highlights the need to make ecological information less fragmented and more consistent along school levels, to accompany young citizens and provide them with knowledge and skills to care for the environment.

Pantelleria, a volcanic island located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, is part of one of the global biodiversity hotspots and since 2014 it has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This island from a social point of view is at great risk of depopulation due to economic conditions and lacks educational and employment offers to the inhabitants. In 2023 the project "Educating Community Enterprise. Relationality and local ecological knowledge" responds to a social and environmental emergency. This project aims to enhance the local ecological knowledge that a community has of the ecological system of its territory, and to propose community enterprise as a participatory and community-based economic model to develop environmentally sustainable work alternatives.
Four educational courses with active methodologies were proposed for secondary and high school students. Excursions to learn about the island's biodiversity and build an 'ecological identity. Another path saw the young people accompanied by expert tutors together with the inhabitants holders of local ecological knowledge such as the Art of the Creeping Olive Tree, a unique olive-growing technique that makes it possible to counteract the island's aridity and strong winds. Another path was to create a Pantelleria nursery of native wild plants starting with seed collection to create gardens without introducing invasive alien species. Lastly, a course to develop interpersonal and communication skills and learn how to design a community enterprise. Currently the first year of this project has ended, in which the students have shown a high level of activation and participation. In May 2024 a Conference was organized by all partners togheter the students at the end of the 1st year of the project. We look forward to the second year of the project to present discussions and conclusions.

Games, due to their inherent propensity, combine knowledge to discern patterns, making them extremely useful for science education. Ecology, the science of patterns’ recognition, has significant potential for gamification. Within this framework, we developed the game "Tracce nel Mare – Ecosistemi da Salvare" wherein ecological principles are translated into game mechanics. This approach aims to significantly enhance students' comprehension of marine ecological patterns. The primary ecological concepts incorporated into the game were: 1) habitat fragmentation, encompassing both the identification and understanding of the various factors driving fragmentation and its potential impacts on ecological patterns; 2) the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning; 3) the provision of ecosystem services linked to the functions of key habitat-forming species. The game begins with a "Puzzle Duel," designed to familiarize players with the target habitats: Posidonia oceanica meadows, vermetid reefs and coralline algae beds. Elements for success in ecology, such as exploration (i.e., monitoring) and information synthesis, have been integrated into the game's five challenges (i.e., boxes). These include: "Question Points", designed to stimulate the creation of a knowledge baseline on the target habitats; "Ecological Memory", aimed at memorizing habitat threats and the ecosystem services associated with healthy habitats; "Carbon Challenge", to facilitate learning about carbon cycling in coralline algae; "Vermetid Craft", to explore the functioning and services provided by reef-forming species. The game set contains a "master" box for teachers to guide the adventure, along with five challenge boxes. Each box is equipped with materials for two teams (2-10 players). The game has been donated to four Sicilian Marine Protected Areas (https://eeb.unipa.it/tracce-nel-mare/), to a local library/community centre and to the eco-museum in Palermo, and to an aquarium in Malta. The game was developed as a scale-up action of a capitalisation project Interreg VI-A Italy-Malta “CapSenHAR”, co-financed by the European Union's, Regional Development Fund.

Designed as hybrid courses, Erasmus Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP) are based on innovative teaching, learning and training methodologies for students and teachers, combining virtual teaching and short periods of physical mobility. These programs involve a minimum of three international academic partners, fostering transnational and multidisciplinary curricula, while ensuring access to different teaching models and learning methodologies.

The BIP "Marine Environmental Threats” (MET) is a 6 ECTS course, coordinated by the University of Pavia (UNIPV; Italy), with the participation of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU; Spain) and the University of Azores (UAç, Portugal). It is focused on the main issues jeopardizing the health of the marine ecosystems and addresses them from a transdisciplinary perspective, based on the UNESCO declaration of the Ocean Decade (2020-2030) and SDGs 4 (quality education) and 14 (life below water). In particular, MET includes an online virtual mobility component, which combines synchronous and asynchronous teaching taught by UPV/EHU and UAç (1 ECTS each), ensuring flexibility and accessibility to all course contents, with English as the main vehicular language. The virtual component evolves simultaneously to other curricular subjects and students develop digital competences, communication and time management skills, while working on subjects related to ecosystem health, marine pollution, biomonitoring, overfishing and fisheries management. Following the virtual phase, the students from all three universities attend a physical mobility week (4 ECTS) organized at UNIPV and consisting in multiple activities that include seminars, lab activities, field work and workshops. These activities address multiple subjects such as climate change, underwater sound pollution and bioinvasions. Throughout the duration of the course, participants are immersed in an interdisciplinary and multicultural atmosphere that promotes development of interpersonal skills, including active listening, multilingualism, and teamwork.

The collaboration between different scientific communities within the cross-disciplinary field of environmental sciences is essential to exchange data, protocols, methods, etc. This collaboration is also crucial to integrate scientific knowledge in a clear and unambiguous manner. This is particularly important in a world undergoing significant environmental changes, where the impact of humans on all ecosystems is becoming increasingly evident. Conventional and technology-driven research activities produce a vast amount of data and other research products such as algorithms, software, models. However, these outputs often remain inaccessible and cannot be reutilised by other scientists. The adoption of FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) and Open Science practices can facilitate the endeavours in the conservation of ecosystems’ functioning and services by promoting data sharing and reutilisation. From this perspective, e-Science tools are highly effective and useful for achieving the FAIR data principles, particularly in the context of interdisciplinary research. The ITINERIS project aims to provide a unique, integrated access point to FAIR products and services provided by the 22 participating Research Infrastructures (RIs) covering all four environmental domains. The ITINERIS Hub will integrate a terminology service to facilitate the search and discovery of Semantic Artefacts (SA) which can be also used to annotated data and/or metadata of research products, thereby strengthening semantic interoperability across RIs.

Nature-based environmental education is crucial to improve the public awareness towards the benefits generated by protecting biodiversity locally. Seagrasses, from this perspective, support a rich biodiversity and deliver important ecosystem services, but widely remain poorly known.

In the frame of the "Sunrise" project, we assessed the public knowledge/perception about the seagrass Posidonia oceanica (L.) and its beach-cast accumulations (called "banquettes"), contributing to spread the notion about the importance of "marine naturalness, biodiversity and ecosystem services" in the context of Genoa City (Italy, NW Mediterranean). We administered a questionnaire to 250 pupils (aged 11-17) of 14 school classes then showing 'in the field' what discussed in classrooms. Elderly people, also, were involved to get info from their memories about P. oceanica and banquettes in the past.

Results show that only 14% of pupils recognizes P. oceanica as a “marine plant”, while 68% perceives the presence of banquettes along the beaches as a “noise”. Moreover, regarding their experience, about 60% answered rarely at the question if topics of Ocean Literacy and marine science issues were included in their school’s curriculum.Elderly reported a vivid memory of the past presence of P. oceanica and banquettes, without any negative perception as it was ‘natural’. Such evidences stress the urgent need i) to include (marine) ecological concepts in school programmes and ii) to promote inter-generational exchanges about environmental perceptions.

Further, according to the literature on emotional connections and cultural ecosystem services, we will investigate the affiliation of the pupils with coastal ecosystem, with the aim to bring out emotional affiliation, a factor on par with others traditionally recognized for behavior change, such as knowledge or interest.

Biodiversity plays a crucial role in maintaining ecosystem functioning and ensuring the provision of ecosystem services that support human well-being, since the potential ecosystem functions in an ecosystem are a function of the diversity within it. In the marine environment, diverse species in different measure contribute to essential processes such as primary production, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration and others, due their traits and main ecological attributes. However, biodiversity is increasingly threatened by anthropogenic stressors and climate change, leading to significant alterations in species composition and ecosystem dynamics. Seagrass meadows play a crucial role in coastal ecosystems, they enhance biodiversity in the areas where they are present by influencing the productivity, carbon cycling, filtration, food webs and other functions that make them great source of ecosystem services. The capacity of the seagrass to provide shelter and food is related to its architecture, which apart from being a direct measure of the state of the meadow, drives the secondary production, affecting the consumption and predation of organisms associated and, therefore, shaping its associated biodiversity. Seagrass structural complexity is then strictly connected with most of the ecological interactions, the structure of the community and the number of functions expressed by the underlying community. Here we present the results of our research where biodiversity is studied in a gradient of habitat structural complexity (shoot density; based on the hypothesis in which: higher complexity = higher biodiversity) to investigate its relationship to some indicators of ecosystem functions such as habitat provision, sediment stabilization and carbon sequestration. These results represent an important step in understanding the underlying mechanisms that drive ecosystem functioning, which then can be used to inform decisionmakers about the relevance of biodiversity when prioritizing conservation actions.

Besides providing important ecosystem functions, seagrasses are highly productive habitat-forming species essential in supporting fish diversity. In the Mediterranean Sea, seagrasses represent the main component of the sublittoral marine environment hosting a huge number of fish species that use this habitat for reproduction, foraging and/or refuge from predation. Despite these key roles, a complete synthesis of fish species observed in different seagrass habitats at Mediterranean basin scale is still lacking, potentially limiting the understanding of the main mechanisms involved in determining fish diversity patterns.

We performed a systematic review by implementing a semi-automated, threshold-based filtering pipeline that allowed building up one of the most up-to-date databases covering all fish species reported in native Mediterranean seagrasses, including specific functional traits known to be involved with the potential use of seagrasses by fish. From a total of 62,881 papers covering decades of literature, the filtering pipeline allowed selecting 165 papers reporting original and unduplicated data about the presence of fish species on seagrasses, alongside spatial information, sampling methods, habitat composition, substrates and the life stage at which species have been reported. The database is composed of more than 9,000 records, for a total number of 248 species belonging to 75 families recorded from 101 localities and 10 different habitats.

Multivariate analysis allowed illustrating the potential of the database, providing support to several assumptions repeatedly stated in literature but so far sustained mainly by local and fragmented data, ultimately suggesting the onset of a general pattern in the occurrence of species, mostly based on life history and driven by body size and feeding habits. Although we evidenced unexpected knowledge gaps, our dataset could provide a sound basis for scientists and managers across many fields, from fisheries to biodiversity assessment and conservation.

Understanding the determinants of range extent and distribution of species is an important goal in community ecology. Based on the mid-domain effect (MDE) hypothesis, species range extent and their distribution are random within the limits of a spatial domain (e.g., an elevational or latitudinal gradient). On the other hand, Rapoport’s rule postulates that species range extent and distribution vary according to the climatic fluctuations experienced along a climatic variability gradient. As climatic variability usually increases with elevation, species are expected to sort based on their climatic niche. Climatic specialists should only occur in climatically stable regions and therefore should present narrow range extents. Climatic generalists, conversely, are expected to inhabit both climatically stable and unstable areas and therefore present wide range extents. As a result, average range extents should increase from lower to higher elevations. We explored whether the hyperdiverse myrmecofauna of the Santa Catalina Mountains in the Madrean Sky Island Region conforms to the MDE hypothesis or Rapoport’s rule. Ants were collected using pitfall traps. Elevational range extent was calculated for each species. Then, we divided the elevational range into bands of 50 m (from 1000 to 2800 m) and calculated for each band the mean species range extent. Finally, we regressed mean range extents against elevation. Since, according to Rapoport’s rule, the variability of range extent should decline with increasing elevation (i.e., climatic variability), we also regressed the coefficient of variation of range extent against elevation. Mean range extent weakly increased with increasing elevation, while the coefficient of variation did not decline with increasing elevation. These findings suggest that, in general, the ants of the study area do not follow Rapoport’s rule but conform to the MDE hypothesis.

Anaerobic fungi (AF) thrive in the rumen ecosystem, where they are recognised as the microbial component with the greatest capacity to hydrolyse plant biomass. Due to their ability to also degrade lignin and the strictly anaerobic conditions of the rumen, AFs have recently been taken into consideration for promising biotechnological applications. These include the energy valorization of waste biomass and in particular anaerobic digestion (AD) applied for the production of methane-rich biogas. However, the incomplete knowledge about AFs role in the AD trophic chain as well as the difficulty in detecting fungal structures metabolically active during the process limit the studies of their application at industrial scale. To gain new insights into the ecological role of AFs during AD, a bioaugmentation experiment was conducted in batch configuration using wheat straw as substrate and digestate from an industrial AD plant as inoculum. Moreover, a protocol was defined for the detection of metabolically active fungal structures. The results suggest that the role of AFs in the AD trophic web is at least twofold. They are both at its base, before the hydrolytic bacteria with which they cooperate, and at its apex, directly related with methanogenic Archaea. The latter connection seems to prevail in case of AD metabolic imbalance, in response to the need to consolidate the trophic web. In terms of bioprocess, bioaugmentation made AD more efficient, with an increase in CH₄ production of up to 80% when using AF and up to 120% in case of combined bioaugmentation with a pool of fermenting bacteria. These findings are of particular interest for future applications of AF aimed at producing sustainable and renewable energy also contributing to ecological waste disposal.

The geometrid moths (Lepidoptera Geometridae), whose larvae have a quite restricted food niche and establish strong links with their host plants and habitats, are good candidates as bio-indicators of environmental quality. We analyzed the diversity pattern of geometrid moths and plant communities on dune landscapes in the Central Adriatic coast in a N2K site (SIC IT7228221 Foce Trigno - Marina di Petacciato), included in the LTER Network LTER_EU_IT_081). Moth and plant communities were sampled along three strips perpendicularly to the seashore. Within each strip, we sampled vegetation and moths on two dune sectors: (a) shifting dunes (EU Habitats 2120 and 2230), and (b) fixed dunes (EU Habitat 2260). Moths were collected using light traps with UV LEDs every 15 days for one year (December 2021 - November 2022). Vegetation was sampled by randomly placing 5 (4 m × 4 m) plots per sector in each strip (30 plots). For both moths and vascular plants, we compared the community structure of shifting dunes and fixed dunes. We also used multivariate analyses to explore the relation between moths and vegetation. We recorded 37 moth and 71 plant species. Moth alpha-diversity showed similar values in shifting and fixed dunes, while species composition varied substantially (high beta-diversity) between the two zones. Fixed dunes hosted a greater number of moth species with larvae feeding on woody plants. Shifting dunes were home to generalist moths associated with herbaceous vegetation. The most abundant species on the fixed dunes were Cyclophora puppillaria and Peribatodes rhomboidaria (both associated with woody species - phanerophytes and chamaephytes). The most abundant species on the shifting dunes was Eucrostes indigenata (associated with Euphorbia paralias). Geometrid communities are tightly associated with the different zones of the dune vegetation and preserving dunes requires attention to both habitat types and their moths.

Marine Animal Forests (MAFs) encompass a set of the most important marine benthic habitats into which diversified sessile suspension feeders like anthozoans, sponges, bryozoans, corals, sea pens, ascidians, tube worms, and bivalves occur. Such a mix of sessile species raises unique structures and supports important ecosystem functions, providing three-dimensional environments suitable for a number of additional associated species, and ultimately resulting in biodiversity hotspots. In the last decades, some MAFs have been the object of international conventions, EU directives, and national policies to address human-induced disturbances. Effective conservation, monitoring, and restoration actions require summarizing the available information to include MAFs in conservation plans. In the present research, the main international policies for the protection of coastal and marine fauna were screened in order to provide a list of protected species occurring in the Mediterranean basin. These international normative documents include the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Habitats (Bern Convention), the European Habitat Directive, and the Protocol concerning Specially Protected Areas and Biological Diversity in the Mediterranean (SPA/BD Protocol) of the Barcelona Convention. A wider view such as the one proposed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is accompanying effective conservation measures. The obtained findings revealed that several MAF species are protected by some normative tools, nevertheless only a few species are reported by the EU Habitat Directive, which is the main legal instrument in the European nature conservation policy. This database represents a starting point to handle the dramatic loss of MAF biomass and biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea, supporting the effective implementation of appropriate conservation and management measures in the Mediterranean basin.

Investigating the mechanisms underlying the organization and maintenance of phytoplankton communities is crucial, particularly in the context of climate change. Since Hutchinson's plankton paradox in 1961, numerous theories have explored phytoplankton species coexistence mechanisms in highly diverse local guilds, linking individual-based processes to broader ecosystem and global dynamics. However, despite significant advancements, these mechanisms remain not fully understood. Here, we present a conceptual niche-based approach to decode the mechanisms organizing phytoplankton biodiversity using phytoplankton occurrence and abundance data. The study is based on an integrated dataset of 127311 individual phytoplankton records, belonging to 306 taxa, collected across 24 transitional water ecosystems distributed among five biogeographical regions: the Northern Atlantic Ocean, South-Western Atlantic Ocean, South-Western Pacific Ocean, Indo-Pacific Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. We investigated size-abundance and species-area relationships and biodiversity patterns in terms of richness, diversity and similarity at different levels of data aggregation and scale. Our findings revealed a high taxonomic diversity both at regional and intra-regional level, with the Northern Atlantic Ocean area showing the highest taxonomic diversity and the Indo Pacific Ocean area showing the highest morpho-functional diversity. Negative trends in species-area relationships have been observed in all ecoregions except for South-Western Atlantic Ocean. Overall, tropical ecoregions (South-Western Atlantic Ocean, South-Western Pacific Ocean, Indo-Pacific Ocean) exhibited high intraregional similarity (between 42 and 70%) while, mid-latitude regions (Northern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea) showed low intraregional similarity (less than 20%). The achieved results suggest neutral and lottery competition theories as the most likely to explain biodiversity organizations in the phytoplankton guilts of the studied biogeographical areas. These results seem to indicate the potential use of commonly collected data on phytoplankton community to address the community organization when integrated with the proposed conceptual niche-based approach.

The Antarctic marine food web supports high biodiversity and ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, fisheries and tourism. Climate change is altering sea ice dynamics, modifying resource availability with cascading effects throughout the food web. Fish fauna, a dominant component of Antarctic marine communities, reach high biomass densities even with limited resources. However, mechanisms underlying Antarctic fish coexistence are poorly understood. Understanding trophic niche partitioning among fish populations and their dependence on sea-ice resources is thus essential for predicting climate change effects on food webs and associated services.

This study investigated the trophic niche of six Antarctic fish species in Terra Nova Bay (Ross Sea) under conditions of low (winter) and high (late spring) resource availability to evaluate coexistence mechanisms. It is hypothesized that strong trophic niche partitioning occurs both within and between species, particularly during the less productive season. Individual stable isotope analysis of carbon and nitrogen was performed on muscles and livers, which provided information on the winter and the late spring diet, respectively. ITUs (Isotopic Trophic Units, Rossi et al., 2019) were used to quantify trophic-functional redundancy (as the number of species per ITU) and potential vulnerability to species invasion (as proportion of empy ITUs in total). In winter, species had narrow niches with differences between populations yet a very low differentiation in resource use among conspecifics. In late spring, trophic niches were broader, with conspecifics specialising on different resources while maintaining a low overlap with other species. While supporting coexistence, such marked trophic niche differentiations produced a low functional redundancy among the studied populations and hence a high potential vulnerability to species invasion. Our results highlight the importance of resource diversity, including sea-ice resources, for fish coexistence in Antarctic ecosystems. Consequently, changes in resource availability due to variations in sea ice coverage could impact biodiversity persistence.

Pigments used in various industries such as the production of paints, dyes and cosmetics are heterogeneous materials sized between 0.2-0.3 micrometers and can be classified as emerging pollutants. Unlike dyes, they do not penetrate the material but form a colored layer on the surface of the objects from which they are easily released and dispersed in the environment. Pigments are divided into four main categories: natural inorganic substances (from metals or rare earths extracted from mineral deposits), synthetic inorganic substances (industrially produced from raw minerals), natural organic substances (from plant or animal sources), and synthetic organic substances (from petroleum derivatives).

Their dispersion in the environment poses a significant threat to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, as they cause pollution both through the release of the chemical substances that compose them and through their nanometric nature, which has the property of interacting with organisms, thus threatened the conservation of the ecosystem biodiversity.

In this study, six pigments (three synthetic and three natural, similar colors) with the widest range of commodity applications were selected. Size, morphological properties, chemical composition (metals, metalloids, rare earths), and behavior in the aquatic environment, both freshwater and marine were determined. In addition, their ecotoxicity was assessed using two target species: the bacterium Aliivibrio fischeri (aquatic environment) and the monocotyledonous plant Lepidium sativum (terrestrial environment). In addition, in plants, the absorption of pigments at the root level was also evaluated. The results show a significant difference of behavior of the pigments in aquatic environments depending on the salinity of the matrix; content of metals, metalloids and rare earths also depending on their color; a significant absorption at the root system level by plants. Our results suggest that further research is needed to evaluate the risk for the environment related to the massive use and dispersion of pigments.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) compounds constitute a class of chemicals that possess unique water and oil-repellent properties. For this reason, these synthetically produced fluorinated compounds are implicated in various applicative fields and are used to produce many items, such as food packaging, non-stick cookware and cosmetics. In this context, although PFAS improved many aspects of the everyday life, on the other hand their global distribution led to an abundant release in the environment, with an elevated consequent risk of bioaccumulation in the living organisms as already observed for other pollutants. Indeed, given their properties, PFAS resist to any kind of degrading process and this property, combined with a massive use and release of PFAS-containing products, make their waste a crucial environmental worldwide problem. In this context, while numerous data are available regarding the toxicity of the first generation “legacy” PFAS, scant information exists on newly synthesized emerging molecules, with limited details on the cellular-level effects. Given these premises, the medicinal leech Hirudo verbana has been proposed in the current study to assess the possible side effects of four different fluorinated PFAS compounds (HFPO-DA, PFMoBa, PFOA and PFMOPrA) during freshwater dispersion. In particular, two concentrations (0.6 and 229 μM) have been tested, evaluating PFAS ability to induce leech inflammatory response and oxidative stress. Results have been analyzed by means of morphological, immunohistochemical and molecular assays, revealing how these molecules were differently able to modulate both the cellular and the molecular response. As recently demonstrated for plastics particles, this work can lead new information also about PFAS, deepening the current knowledge on their potential harmful effects, deriving also from a possible accumulation in living organisms.

Fire training sites and airports are major PFAS contamination sources due
to the widespread use of Aqueous Film-Forming Foam (AFFF). Although recent
policies restrict PFAS congeners higher than C8, legacy contaminants such as
PFOS and PFOA persist, impacting ecosystems. Modern AFFF formulations
still include short-chain PFAS and their oxidizable precursors. In terrestrial
ecosystems, earthworms play a key role in soil processes. This study assesses
the impact of PFAS-contaminated soil on earthworms, highlighting ecological
consequences and the need for sustainable policies. Using a multi-tier
approach, the study investigated apical toxicity and sublethal responses of
earthworms across a PFAS contamination gradient at a drill site in Trelleborg,
Sweden. PFAS contamination was confirmed with 22 compounds measured,
mainly PFOS, PFHxS, PFOSA, 6:2 FTS, PFHpS, PFOA, and PFPeA, ranging
from 960 ppb to 8.7 ppb. OECD No. 207 (acute toxicity) and No. 222
(reproduction) tests, plus 30-day sublethal assessments, were conducted.
Biomarkers included mRNA relative abundances of immune-related genes
(lysenin and ccf-1) and oxidative burst in hemocytes; enzymatic responses in
tissues, including catalase, phenol oxidase, and acetylcholinesterase. A
behavioral test based on escape time was administered to each earthworm
after 30-day exposure. Pristine soil with similar granulometric size and organic
matter served as an external reference control. Acute toxicity (mortality) at 14
days was below the threshold of OECD test No. 207, but reproduction was
impacted at all sites except B7 according to OECD No. 222. In general,
sublethal responses across the PFAS gradient showed a significant impact
compared to the reference control, but a linear response was barely observed
with the PFAS concentration found in soil. Acetylcholinesterase activity and
escape time showed interesting correlations, warranting further investigation of
critical neurotransmitters for locomotion using LC-MS metabolomics. These
findings contribute to understanding PFAS-contaminated site ecology and aid
in constructing an environmental database for risk assessment.

After the spreading of COVID-19, the amount of plastics in the ocean was severely enhanced due to the increased production of PPE, in particular surgical masks. Once entered into the environment, these disposable items can both release potential toxic additives and undergo fragmentation leading to the formation of microplastics and nanoplastics. Moreover, microplastics and nanoplastics are considered the most harmful for corals and marine organisms since can easily be ingested. Current information regarding the effects of micro and nanoplastics on coral reefs is limited; especially the toxicity of nanoplastics and nanoplastics leachate from fibers degradation of synthetic fabrics. The alcyonacean Pinnigorgia flava was exposed for 72 h to different concentrations of polypropylene nanofibers (0.1 and 1 mg/L) and nanofibers leachate (0.1 and 1 mg/L) under controlled aquaria conditions. The cellular response was assessed through antioxidant enzymatic assays, namely Superoxide Dismutase (SOD), Catalase (CAT), Glutathione Reductase (GR), and Glutathione-S-Transferase (GST). Results showed that for all treatments, oxidative stress was experienced in all samples. However, different patterns of enzymatic activity were observed between nanofibers and leachates, with a general higher toxicity generated by leachates exposition that produced an inhibition and/or impairment of the antioxidant defense mechanisms at cellular level. This study represents a new area of investigation and is one of the first to focus on such stressors on soft coral species. In addition, the results highlight that nanofibers and leachates are indeed a major threat for coral reefs, which are already exposed to multiple climate change stressors and relentless anthropogenic pressures.

This study explores the potential of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) to mitigate metal stress in Lemna minor 5500 through its adsorption capacity. We investigated the co-exposure effects of nickel (Ni) and copper (Cu) on the duckweed plant.

Experimental set-up included different treatments (in triplicate): control plants (CP) in mineral water, plants with rGO (1 mg/L) (PG), plants exposed to either Cu (1 mg/L) or Ni (1.3 mg/L) (PM) and plants exposed to a combination of rGO (1 mg/L) and either Cu (1 mg/L) or Ni (1.3 mg/L) (PGM).

Cu exposure significantly reduced biomass (20%) by T14 in PM compared to CP. This effect was not statistically significant at T7, although a similar trend of RGR was observed. Interestingly, rGO treatment appeared to mitigate Cu stress. After 14 days, PGM plants showed a statistically significant increase in carotenoid content (43%) compared to PM, while total chlorophyll content also increased by 65% (though not statistically significant). These findings suggest rGO may alleviate Cu-induced stress on L. minor, potentially through enhanced chlorophyll and carotenoid production.

Copper accumulation in the PGM treatment was 25% lower than in the PM treatment after only seven days, suggesting its greater effectiveness in reducing copper accumulation. Our findings from the Cu co-exposure experiment support the hypothesis that GBMs can reduce metal bioavailability for plants. Ni uptake wasn't affected by rGO, suggesting a need for further study on this metal-rGO interaction. These results suggest a possible relationship between the observed effects and the different affinities that Cu and Ni may have for rGO and, consequently, their relative bioavailability for L. minor. The different physiological performances of the two treatments seem to confirm these hypotheses. Further investigations will be necessary to verify their applicability in the field of phytoremediation, such as large-scale experiments with different GBM and selected Lemna clones.

Antibiotic (ABs) use is surging globally, particularly in intensive livestock production. ABs are often incompletely metabolized by animals, leading to significant excretion through feces and urine. Consequently, aquatic environments are becoming major repositories of ABs, with significant negative impacts on ecosystems, as these emerging pollutants also affect non-target organisms. This study examines the effects of a mixture of sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and chlorotetracycline (CTC), along with their potential interaction with copper sulphate (CuSO₄ 5H₂O, Cu), released in aquatic environment from anthropogenic sources, on the aquatic plant Lemna sp., a common aquatic plant worldwide distributed and used as a model organism in ecotoxicology tests due to its rapid growth and sensitivity to environmental pollutants. Initially, following OECD guidelines¹, the toxicity Cu, SMX and CTC was investigated on Lemna mediterranea 9425a plants. The concentration-response relationship was used to estimate EC₅₀ values: Cu, EC₅₀= 7.27 mg/L; SMX, EC₅₀= 173.00 mg/L and CTC, EC₅₀= 6.99 mg/L.

To simulate environmental conditions, L. mediterranea was exposed to SMX (2.5 mg/L) and CTC (0.1 mg/L) mixture alone and in combination with different concentrations of copper sulphate, 1.5 mg/L and 4 mg/L, for 14 days. The inhibitory effects induced by contaminants on duckweed plant growth and physiology have been evaluated by measuring fronds biomass, relative growth rate (RGR), pigment content, chlorophyll fluorescence, tolerance index and bioconcentration of Cu. Interestingly, the presence of the antibiotic mixture in combination with Cu appeared to mitigate the harmful effects of copper alone respect to duckweed's biomass and chlorophyll content. This was observed at both exposure times (7 and 14 days). Antibiotics seemed to lessen how much copper the plants absorbed at the highest copper dose, but the plants still accumulated copper over time, just more slowly.

¹OECD. Lemna sp. growth inhibition test. Guideline 221. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development: Paris, France 2006.

The INSIGHT project (https://insight-project.org/) showcases four case studies integrating ecotoxicology and chemo-nano informatics models, demonstrating the intersection of ecotoxicology, chemical and material science safety, sustainability, and advanced in silico approaches. These integrated models, both data-driven and physics-based, provide comprehensive assessments of material safety, sustainability, and functionality, forming a Knowledge Graph that offers new insights and linkages between disparate concepts. The case studies encompass different chemicals or materials, industrial applications, model sets, regulatory landscapes, and scientific questions. They highlight the innovative integration of models and the resultant technical and societal insights.

The case studies focus on the following 4 topics. Graphene Oxide (GO) for Batteries and Construction: GO enhances battery performance and durability of cement. Challenges include scalable production and toxicity assessment. The study addresses GO's impact on material durability and recyclability within regulatory frameworks like REACH and RoHS. Per and Poly Fluoroalkylated Substances (PFAS) for the aerospace industry: PFAS are valued for thermal stability and low friction but pose environmental and health risks. The study explores PFAS replacements and models regulatory compliance, focusing on REACH and the Water Framework Directive. Bio-based Synthetic Amorphous Silica (SAS) for Tyres: Derived from renewable resources, bio-based SAS offers a sustainable alternative to conventional silica. The study evaluates life-cycle and social impacts, aligning with regulations like the EU's End-of-Life Vehicle Directive. Antimicrobial Coatings: Used in healthcare, food packaging, and consumer products, these coatings face challenges like microbial resistance and environmental impact. The study compares nano-enabled coatings with conventional disinfectants, under the EU Biocidal Products Regulation.

The informatics-driven approach integrates diverse modelling methodologies, including social life cycle assessment, to provide a holistic view of material functionality, safety, and sustainability. Each case study is documented through nanopublications, forming a Knowledge Graph consistent with the INSIGHT Data Management Plan and demonstrating leadership in model FAIRification.

Microplastic (MP) pollution is a major environmental concern and a significant threat to aquatic life. This study presents a preliminary assessment of MP pollution in abiotic (water and sediment) and biotic (macrophyton, periphyton, the edible part of the gastropod Sinotaia quadrata, the bivalve Corbicula fluminea, and the crustacean Atyaephyra desmarestii) compartments along different rivers in the Tuscany region. Five sampling sites were identified along the Arno, Bisenzio, and Ombrone rivers, which are known to be exposed to anthropogenic pressures (e.g., presence of a textile factories, effluents from various urban centers). S. quadrata (N=325) was found at all five sampling sites, while C. fluminea (N=19) was only found at site five and A. desmarestii (N=50) at site two. Samples were sorted by stereomicroscopy at 10-80X, and potential targets were then chemically analyzed using microscopy coupled with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (μFT-IR). The analysis led to the identification of 101 items. The main MP colors were blue, white, and black, and the primary chemical types identified were polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate, and polyethylene. A total of 56 MP items were found in S. quadrata, with a statistically significant difference in the average size of microplastics across different size classes. For C. fluminea and A. desmarestii, 9 and 5 MP items were found, respectively. Regarding the abiotic compartments and macrophyton, 31 MPs were identified with a mean size of 318.55 μm for water, 235.70 μm for sediment, and 291.77 μm for macrophyton samples. No MPs were found in periphyton. This study underscores the pervasive presence of microplastics in both abiotic and biotic components of river ecosystems in Tuscany, highlighting the need for further research and mitigation strategies to address this environmental threat.

The environmental challenge of plastic waste has been compounded by the global COVID-19 pandemic. During this period, countries have introduced the obligation to wear surgical face masks in public places to control the spread of the virus.

Since face masks are predominantly made of polystyrene (PP) and tend to release micro/nano fibres (MNFs), they pose a potential hazard to ecosystems.

The present study provides new information regarding the impacts of MNFs in aquatic organisms by evaluating the effects of secondary PP-MNFs derived from the non-woven PP fabrics of surgical face masks on D. rerio individuals.

The impact of MNFs on embryonic and larval zebrafish developmental stages has been evaluated by respectively short-term (up to 6 days) and median-term (up to 15 days) bioassays. The effects of low (0.2 mg/L), medium (1 mg/L), and high (5 mg/L) environmental-relevant contamination levels of MNFs were evaluated. Alterations in several apical endpoints (embryonic development, survival, growth, morphology, behaviour) and transcriptomic analysis were investigated.

After six days of exposure, a significant reduction in the eye area was observed in both the 0.2 mg/L and 5 mg/L treatments. It is noteworthy that the upregulation of genes related to the negative regulation of developmental processes could explain the observed morphological alterations. Moreover, the downregulation of genes involved in energy-related metabolic processes suggests an impairment in the correct development of organisms exposed to PP-MNFs. Furthermore, an increased mortality in MNF treatments occurred between 9 and 12 days, period when larval fish make the transition from endogenous feeding to exogenous feeding. This suggests an impairment in foraging behaviour occurred due the exposure to secondary PP-MNFs.

The findings of this study demonstrate that environmental levels of PP-MNFs may pose a hazard to aquatic organisms, suggesting the potential for an ecotoxicological risk associated with the improper disposal of surgical face masks.

Microplastics (MPs) and invasive species pose significant threats to aquatic conservation, representing critical global eco-environmental challenges. MPs affect aquatic habitats, including physical and ecotoxicological effects on biota, whereas invading species are a key cause of global biodiversity decrease. In Europe, crayfish are among the most common freshwater invaders, leading to local ecological and economic impacts. Lake Maggiore, characterized by growing urbanization, industrial and touristic activities is an important survey area for evaluating the combined effects of these environmental pressures due to its vast hydrographic basin, able of conveying large quantities of MPs towards the lake. This study aimed to assess the presence of invasive crayfish in Lake Maggiore, their biometry and their MPs degree of bioaccumulation. Three invasive crayfish species (Faxonius limosus, Pacifastacus leniusculus, and Procambarus clarkii) were captured in the Swiss sector of the lake along the littoral of Locarno area through baited traps. They were divided by sex, weighed and sized and their belonging to the species were also confirmed through molecular approach. A pool of 30 individuals per species and sex divided into small, medium and large sizes was considered for the analyzes of the presence of MPs in the intestine. The results revealed MPs accumulation of 0.07 ± 0.06 items/specimen in P. clarkii, 0.20 ± 0.10 items/specimen in P. leniusculus, and 0.37 ± 0.31 items/specimen in F. limosus, the latter showing higher concentrations. Polyester and polyacrylate were the most common MPs in the three species. Thus, intestinal content may reflect the bioavailability of MPs in Lake Maggiore, giving an alternative to monitoring abiotic matrices while additionally supporting invasive species containment. More research is needed to discover the best crayfish species for detecting MPs pollution and to assess how much MPs move from the intestine to other organs, particularly muscle edible tissues used in the food market.

Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) include a vast array of currently unregulated xenobiotics, including chemicals, their by-products. These contaminants are not necessarily newly synthetized, but their presence in natural ecosystems has only recently started to be investigated. Some CECs are currently under scrutiny for regulation because they have potential adverse effects on wild organisms and human health, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), flame retardants (FRs), certain pesticides, plastic additives, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), nanoparticles, and micro and nanoplastics. During the last years, the occurrence and distribution of certain CECs have been detected in the Mediterranean basin, one of most polluted marine regions, and their bioaccumulation and biomagnification have been documented. However, the studies on the trophic transfer of CECs in marine ecosystems have mainly focused on species belonging to low trophic levels. We propose the Scopoli's shearwaters (Calonectris diomedea), a top-predator in the Mediterranean marine trophic chain, as an excellent sentinel organism for biomonitoring spatial and temporal pattern of CECs in this area. We will focus on obtaining biological samples from shearwaters breeding at several colonies across most of the Mediterranean Sea, from Greece to Spain. The accumulation of different CECs, including PPCPs, FRs, plastic additives and PFASs will be assessed in the blood from fledglings exposed to local levels of contamination. These analyses will shed light on the spatial distribution of CECs and will act as a baseline for biomonitoring the fate of CECs in Mediterranean ecosystems.

This study aims to enhance our understanding of emerging pollutants and their effects on energy transfer within trophic networks. The main goal is to investigate how exposure to substances can impact the ecological mechanisms regulating biomass distribution across trophic levels, to predict their effects and manage their thresholds. Specifically, the study concentrates on the impact of Gadolinium (Gd) on autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms.

The selected taxa as models for both marine (Aliivibrio fischeri, Phaeodactylum tricornutum, Paracentrotus lividus) and freshwater ecosystems (Aliivibrio fischeri, Raphidocelis subcapitata, Daphia magna) represent the foundational elements of total productivity, reflecting the carbon content within the natural capital. Gadolinium is an external element primarily used in medical settings as a contrast agent for enhancing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) efficacy. However, the increased Gd content in recent years, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, has prompted a need for further investigation.

This research aims to perform reliable predictions applicable to empirical models and meeting legal requirements for Gd distribution and permissible levels in marine and freshwater environments. Through assessing ecotoxicological responses and essential biometric characteristics under relevant environmental concentrations, organisms in mesocosms were exposed to known pollutant levels (ranging from 0.1 to 100 μg/L). Significant ecotoxicological effects were recorded at 100 μg/L, prompting additional concentration tests at higher levels (250-500-800 μg/L). Trophodynamic analysis revealed shifts in carbon content per unit and their implications for overall productivity. The outcomes of this study provide insights into how Gd influences biomass loss, subsequently impacting energy transfer between trophic levels.

The Mediterranean Sea is facing rising anthropogenic impacts. In addition to marine traffic, tourism, and industrial activities, the basin is also subject to significant riverine runoff that transports contaminants from cities and rural areas. The combination of these pressures and the basin's unique characteristics makes the Mediterranean an accumulation sink for numerous pollutants, including the new generation of compounds and molecules classified as emerging contaminants.

Among these, pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) and phenolic endocrine‐disrupting compounds (PEDCs) have gained attention for their designed bioactivity, and mutagenic and/or carcinogenic properties for organisms, posing a risk to marine ecosystems and human health. Despite this, studies reporting the occurrence and concentration of these pollutants in the Mediterranean marine environment are still lacking.

This study aimed to evaluate the presence of selected PPCPs and PEDCs in two Italian coastal areas with different anthropogenic pressures and exposure to pollutant sources: the Marine Protected Area of Rome Municipality ‘Secche di Tor Paterno‘, located in the Central Tyrrhenian Sea, few miles southern from the River Tiber mouth, and the popular summer tourist destination of Giglio Island (Tuscany Archipelago). The Mediterranean endemic seagrass Posidonia oceanica meadows develop on seabed shallower than 40 m in both areas. Surface seawater, sediment, and P. oceanica (rhizomes and leaves) were collected to investigate the occurrence of pollutants and evaluate the seagrass's potential application as a bioindicator of PEDCs and PPCPs contamination. Additionally, an ecological risk evaluation was performed based on the measured concentrations of these bioactive pollutants in the seawater. Results showed that PPCPs were present at higher concentrations than PEDCs in the study areas and bioaccumulated in P. oceanica, suggesting that this seagrass can be a suitable bioindicator of organic contamination. The risk analysis performed also indicated that the selected contaminants may pose a high risk to the marine ecosystem.

Worm movement depends on alternating waves of inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters, namely GABA and acetylcholine, at the neuromuscular junction. We have previously shown that short-term exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, such as PFOA and the short chain perfluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA), also known as GenX, can affect neurotransmitter levels and impair locomotion in the red worm E. fetida. In this work, we performed molecular docking analysis of a battery of 34 different PFAS congeners with the 3D structure of the human GABA-a​ receptor, showing that several structurally different PFAS have varying affinities for different binding sites and that the majority of PFAS congeners prefer the more spacious flumazenil site, while at the intracellular side, all molecules showed affinity towards the picrotoxin site. We selected a subset of mostly potentially active compounds and assessed their toxicological properties in terms of survival and GABA chloride channel modulation in a modified neuronal-like neuroblastoma cell line. Despite no acute toxicity and hormetic effects, several PFAS compounds could affect GABA chloride currents. PFOS was the most effective in reversibly suppressing GABA current, followed by PFMOBA, PFOA, CH3-PFO3-3-6-9-TriDoA, branched ADONA, and PFMOPrA. These findings highlight the complex interactions and potential neurotoxicity of various PFAS compounds, emphasizing the need for comprehensive risk assessment strategies. The One Health approach, considering the interconnected health of humans, animals, and ecosystems, is crucial for addressing the multifaceted impacts of PFAS contamination. Integrating environmental, biological, and chemical data is essential to develop effective policies and interventions to protect public health and the environment.

Among the several ecosystem services provided by seagrasses, saltmarshes and mangroves, carbon sequestration and long-term storage in sediments is receiving increasing attention as a possible nature-based solution contributing to climate change mitigation. Therefore, an inventory of available data on the carbon stocks of blue carbon (BC) ecosystems is of crucial importance to understand the extent of the contribution of such a nature-based solution and to guide management practices towards conservation and restoration strategies. In this study we reviewed the state of knowledge on carbon stocks of European BC systems in protected and unprotected sites, with the aim to emphasize their role as key ecosystem service providers that should be included in conservation priorities. A systematic review approach was used to assess the literature focusing on European seagrass and saltmarsh habitats. A total of 661 data were extracted from 47 papers out of 832 retrieved that were published between 1994 and 2023. Most of the sites of the 18 countries inventoried were protected under the Natura 2000 Habitats Directive (EU countries) or were Special Areas of Conservation (non-EU counties). The top meter soil Corg stocks (kg Corg m^-2) of seagrass habitats was significantly higher in protected sites than in unprotected sites, but not in saltmarsh habitats. The results of this study provided baseline information on BC systems at the European level and revealed a lack of data in most of the Mediterranean basin, suggesting the need to increase the spatial coverage of carbon stock studies, especially in Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas. In this context, protected areas can serve as valuable laboratories to test the effectiveness of protection on the potential of the BC systems and can help to provide a more comprehensive picture of their potential role in climate change mitigation.

The objective of this project is to assess and quantify the ecosystem services (ES) provided by urban regeneration interventions through the application of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) framework. This research will contribute to important issues such as sustainability, economic support, biodiversity protection and informed policy-making. The project started with an extensive review of contemporary literature to identify the optimal indicators for ES quantification in urban area like squares. However, the literature review revealed a very heterogeneous perspective on both the type and methodology of these indicators, thus making a selection based merely on literature unworkable.

Subsequently, we adopted a structured procedure designed for the monitoring of NBS. This procedure permit to visually representing the project context and the related Theory of change. This methodology maps and traces the observed and presumed causal relationships supposed to influence one or more project objectives, providing a solid basis for accurate planning, management, and monitoring of NBS effectiveness. By documenting the direct threats affecting the objectives and the factors that influence those direct threats, practitioners can identify key intervention points and how to quantify their variations over time.

The project is currently applying this methodology to the analysis of the NBS projects of Piazza della Scienza and the renovation of Piazzale Loreto (Milan) where to monitor some target such as: the concentration of CO2 and PM10, the abundance of invasive species, the thermal comfort, the percentage of impermeable surfaces and the economic budget required for maintenance. To enhance comparability with other case studies and achieve the uptake of current knowledge, the indicators will be based on the EU evaluation framework.

Eventualy we aim to conduct a multiscale and transdisciplinary qualitative-quantitative analysis, enabling a comprehensive evaluation of ecosystem services in their entirety-encompassing ecological, social, and economic dimensions—within diverse territorial and cultural contexts.

This work is a part of PRIN project “New Digital Technologies for full carbon accounting of forests and woody crops” aiming to investigate technological innovations for real time monitoring the 3-D structure of trees, leaves developments, diameter growth and soil GHG exchanges, in order to develop a new Forest and Woody crops Digital Twins, which could become standards for carbon and GHG accounting. In this context, forest ecosystems and fruit tree orchards will be studied, that play a fundamental role as carbon sinks.

Understanding the carbon distribution and respiratory flows along profile is part of an overall carbon accounting picture that is currently fundamental to determine the contribution of terrestrial ecosystems to carbon sequestration, according with all the carbon farming measures and mitigation measures implemented in the Farm to Fork Strategy.

In this study, we defined the distribution of organic carbon and CO₂ fluxes along soil profile in an olive grove of Central Italy (VT), under organic farming for the last nine years (no irrigation, fertilization or soil tillage), in order to explore alternative methodologies of soil respiration measurements based on CO₂ gradient technology rather than closed accumulation chambers. Data from this study were preliminary to the phase of future insertion of CO₂ sensors along soil profile.

In the top soil layer, high values of respiration and microbial carbon were found, whereas the deep soil layers (10-40 cm) had a reduced microbial carbon and activity (about by 73% and 90%), and a lower organic C content (about by 80%), compared to top layer. The striking thing of these preliminary results is that, also in organically managed soil for several years, biological activity and organic C are relegated to the most superficial layer, and CO₂ fluxes from deep soil remains low even when stimulated by ideal conditions of humidity and temperature.

The endemic seagrass of the Mediterranean Sea, Posidonia oceanica, forms extensive meadows that deliver several ecosystem services both underwater and along the shoreline. Like terrestrial plants from which it originates, Posidonia oceanica consistently generates new leaves while discarding the older ones. Under various environmental conditions, substantial quantities of these dead leaves can accumulate on the shore, forming structures referred to as “banquettes”. These deposits, often mixed with sediments, may vary from scattered layers to extensive piles with variable thicknesses from a few centimeters up to several meters. These formations act as natural barriers against coastal erosion since they prevent sand loss and dissipate wave energy. Moreover, the degradation of the washed-up leaves gives back large amounts of nutrients, relevant to the functioning of the coastal food web. In touristic regions, these banquettes are often perceived as a nuisance, prompting local authorities to mandate their removal, thus affecting coastal ecosystem dynamics.

This study proposes the assessment of P. oceanica banquettes along the coastline of the Campania Region (Southern Italy), estimating their biomass and the associated concentration of nutrients and other chemical elements. The main goal is to evaluate the potential loss of natural capital and ecosystem services associated with the removal of P. oceanica banquettes.

The findings revealed that approximately 40 tons of carbon per year are sequestered in the beached biomass along the Campania coastline, equivalent to the annual primary production of about 160.000 m² of meadows. The results of the statistical analysis showed that values of biomass and nutrients remain consistent across different sites, potentially reducing the extensive sampling effort required to collect field data, especially for large-scale investigations.

This study presents a multidisciplinary approach useful for the evaluation of different strategies for the sustainable management of Posidonia oceanica banquettes.

This thesis aims to contribute to the knowledge of the intricate interaction between the services provided by soil ecosystems and the biodiversity within them. The main objective is to understand the relationships that exist between soil ecosystem services and its biodiversity. These relationships significantly influence the ecosystem, and understanding them is crucial for maintaining soil health and productivity.

The investigation uses a dual approach – “top/down” and “bottom/up” – to examine these relationships. The top/down approach involves examining satellite data and relating it through abiotic and biotic factors and ecosystem services. The bottom/up approach is used to link the soil community, biodiversity, and its functions to soil ecosystem services. Integrating these two perspectives allows us to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of soil ecosystems.

The research is conducted in the context of the Inden mining site, which offers a unique opportunity to study soil communities in a disturbed environment with the same soil properties and a unique chronological sequence of sites belonging to the area. The data collected from this site will be normalized and scaled, making it possible to extrapolate the results to a broader geographical area, particularly the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) region in Germany in collaboration with SOB4ES project.

The goal is to contribute to the scientific understanding of soil biodiversity and its role in ecosystem services. This knowledge is fundamental for developing effective strategies for soil conservation and sustainable land management. Ultimately, the aim is to ensure the long-term health and resilience of soil ecosystems, which are vital for human well-being and environmental sustainability.

Even if air pollution concentrations have declined over the last two decades, the amelioration of air quality remains one of the biggest challenges that Europe is facing nowadays. Atmospheric pollution is still a major cause of mortality and disease in Europe and remains the largest environmental health risk. Particulate Matter (PM) and Ozone (O₃) can be considered some of the most hazardous among the whole of air pollutants. The present study aims to assess how forests can have a pivotal role in the air quality amelioration throughout the Regulating Ecosystem Services (RES) of PM₁₀ and O₃ removal. The case study investigates the role of the alpine forest of the Bolzano Province in providing these RES. Arboreal vegetation contributes to the abatement of PM₁₀ concentrations via deposition mechanisms involving the leaf surface while the O₃ is removed from the atmosphere thanks to the stomata. Considering their morpho-functional traits, the vegetation was divided into two functional groups. A spatially explicit high-resolution modelling approach integrating green cover, remotely-sensed Leaf Area Index (LAI), and PM₁₀/O₃ concentrations data was used. The maps of mean seasonal removal efficiency (kg/ha) and total removal (Mg) were obtained elaborating the data in a GIS environment and performed on a seasonal basis. Finally, the monetary evaluation of both the RES of PM₁₀ and O₃ removal was performed using the externality value provided by the European Environment Agency (EEA) for EU countries for these pollutants. The biophysical and economic assessment of these two RES could support forest managers and policy-makers committed to developing strategies for sustainable development and human well-being.

The ongoing climate change requires the implementation of urgent adaptation measures in alpine areas in order to mitigate the detrimental effects on natural capital and associated Ecosystem Services (ES). Alpine regions, like Trento province in North Italy, are facing significant challenges, including shifts in temperature, altered precipitation patterns and increased frequency of extreme weather events. The objective of this study is to evaluate the most relevant ES in order to support the Climate Change Adaptation Plan (CCAP) for the Trento province, using the river Noce basin as a pilot area. The research began by identifying the most relevant ES provided in the area, including water provision, livestock, carbon sequestration, biodiversity support and cultural services. Effective indicators for each ES were then selected based on available data and suitable methodologies, ensuring that the assessment was comprehensive and context-specific.

The results highlight a heterogeneous distribution of ES within the basin, driven by varying environmental characteristics and landscape patterns. This spatial variability underscores the necessity for adaptive management practices that can address local needs and conditions. The study emphasizes the necessity of incorporating ES assessment in adaptation planning to ensure that alpine areas can effectively navigate the challenges posed by climate change while safeguarding their natural and socio-economic assets. The integration of ES assessment into CCAPs is of paramount importance for the sustainable management of alpine regions, as it provides a framework for the recognition and valuation of the multifaceted benefits that ecosystems offer.

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development prioritizes the sustainability of cities and urban ecosystems, aiming at making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable environments. Nature-based solutions offer a long-term solution to urban environmental challenges by providing several ecosystem services. Green Infrastructures (GI) play an important role in enhancing human well-being by providing ecosystem services that improve air quality, reduce water runoff, reduce pollution from multiple sources, and mitigate urban heat island effects, all of which have significant benefits for human health and municipal budgets. Climate change is projected to raise the demand for these ecosystem services. Many cities are facing the task of ensuring that urban forests, an important component of the urban landscape, remain resilient and continue to offer critical ecosystem services under future climate regimes. In this study, the ecosystem services generated by GI in the Province of Salerno (Southern Italy) were assessed by using the i-Tree Canopy software, which provides a statistically reliable estimate of land cover types using aerial pictures as well as values for air pollution reduction, atmospheric carbon capture, and hydrological benefits. The results highlight the importance of GI in urban areas for improving ecosystem and human health. This study could support urban forest managers, municipal planners, and policymakers to make effective resource management decisions, formulate policies, and set priorities.

The 5th Italian Report on the State of Natural Capital and its recommendations provides important elements to consider in the implementation of the Ecological Transition Plan (ETP), the National Biodiversity Strategy 2030, and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP). The report recalls the need to act on the principle of "Do No Significant Harm" (DNSH ) and maximize the adoption of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS ). These recommendations should also be taken into account for the achievement of the national goals of energy efficiency by 2030, of renewable growth and CO₂ reduction, etc. as defined by the National integrated Energy and Climate Plan (NECP). In this context, offshore wind farms, which are expected to be developed along all Italian coasts, will play a crucial role in the national energy policy.

Considering that the Mediterranean Sea is characterized by high biodiversity, endemic species and protected habitats, the increase in offshore wind farms must include targeted actions to preserve natural capital and ensure adequate conservation of ecological resources. These infrastructures can cause environmental impacts depending on the type of installation and on the environmental characteristics of the area affected by wind farms. In this context, scientific literature reports effects on marine mammals and fish (noise and electromagnetic fields), marine avifauna and benthic habitats and communities (e.g. habitat loss and fragmentation, structural changes and reef effect).
The development of offshore wind farms should therefore be driven by the protection of natural capital and associated ecosystem services in order to prevent significant effects on the marine ecosystem.

Food systems are currently unsustainable, crossing multiple planetary boundaries and causing significant environmental damage. Food production is considered one of the largest drivers of global environmental change by contributing to climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater use, land-system change and interfering with the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. Therefore a comprehensive and radical transformation is required (Willet et al., 2019).

In this context, the Horizon project SWITCH aims to foster a just transition towards healthier and more sustainable food systems. Investigating the barriers and opportunities for change, the project aim to develop practical solutions to support this transition.

One of the main challenges is represented by the assessment and representation of what is sustainable. Current tools like LCA offer standardized protocols for environmental impact assessment, but they focus solely on products and neglect the crucial ecosystem services provided by agricultural systems (Prost et al., 2023).

Agroecology has emerged as a promising approach for food system transformation (Ewert et al., 2023). It seeks to integrate ecological principles with agricultural practices and societal interests, proposing a more comprehensive solution to the challenges facing food systems (Wezel et al. 2020; Gliessman & de Wit Montenegro, 2021).

However, current available agroecology assessment tools such as TAPE (Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation) (FAO, 2019) lack of clear links between agroecological principles and their effects on ecosystem services (Schipanski et al., 2016; Mouratiadou et al. 2021).

This research will present the crucial steps towards developing a comprehensive, standardized, and evidence-based framework for assessing sustainability from an (agro)ecological perspective. The framework will then be tested within the SWITCH project to evaluate its effectiveness in capturing the true impact of agroecological practices and its applicability in real-world settings.

At a time when environmental awareness and public health are top priorities, assessing the environmental and nutritional impact of food is essential. To meet this need, we have developed a comprehensive food database within the framework of the European project SWITCH: Switching European food systems for a just, healthy, and sustainable dietary transition through knowledge and innovation. Accompanied by an online tool, this database presents both the environmental and nutritional values of a wide range of foods. This tool aims to help consumers, researchers, and policymakers make informed and sustainable food decisions.

Our database, an update of the SUEATABLE-LIFE database (Petersson et al., 2021), includes three main environmental indicators: carbon footprint, water footprint, and Fish Sustainability Index. The carbon footprint measures the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced throughout a food's life cycle, from production to consumption. This parameter is crucial for understanding the contribution of food production to climate change. The water footprint calculates the total amount of water polluted to produce a food, a particularly relevant indicator in times of increasing water scarcity. The Fish Sustainability Index assesses the sustainability of fishing and aquaculture practices related to seafood products.

In addition to environmental indicators, our database provides detailed analyses of nutritional values, including macro and micronutrients. These values were calculated as averages of data from all the European countries participating in the SWITCH project, providing a balanced overview of the nutritional quality of foods at a European level.

Our goal is to provide a practical and accessible tool for assessing the environmental and nutritional impacts of food and to promote more sustainable and healthy food choices. The online tool connected to the database is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, allowing users to easily compare different food options and make decisions based on accurate and up-to-date data.

Urban air quality is becoming a serious concern at global scale. Emissions due to human activities are leading to profound changes in the atmosphere composition, also affecting ecological functions and processes, and consequently undermining human well-being. In this context, the 2030 United Nations Agenda and related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight the need for addressing this global challenge. In particular, SDG 11 "Sustainable cities and communities" aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, highlighting the need to implement Nature-Based Solutions useful for improving air quality. Among NBS, Green Infrastructures (GI) can play a crucial role being able to provide a wide range of Ecosystems Services, among which the regulating ecosystem services of Particulate Matter (PM) removal. The present study aims to develop an integrated multi-methodological approach linking air quality monitoring and ecosystem services assessment in urban areas, choosing the municipality of Nola, a highly urbanized area in the Province of Naples (Southern Italy), as a case study. The monitoring of air quality was performed by installing an air station sampler to detect and quantify air pollutants (CO, NO, NO₂, SO₂, H₂S, O₃, PM₁₀, and PM_2.5). Subsequently, the ability of urban vegetation in removing air pollutants was assessed using the i-Tree canopy software. Results show that GI in the Municipality of Nola are not capable of counteracting the high concentration of air pollutants. The results of this study will be useful to policymakers in charge of developing strategies to achieve ecosystems and human health in urban areas.

The coralligenous habitat represents one of the most important marine biodiversity hotspots, playing an important role in the carbon cycle. Coralligenous is a biogenic habitat of the circalittoral zone formed by calcareous structures built by crustose coralline algae and other assemblages of calcifying organisms. Due to its structural complexity, it is also considered one of the most vulnerable marine habitats, very sensitive to environmental changes and anthropogenic impacts, such as climate change and fishing activities. Trawling is the most harmful fishing method that is causing the degradation of large areas of coralligenous reef concretions. Small-scale and sport fishing can also cause damage to the most sensitive organisms of the coralligenous habitat that can be damaged or removed by fishing gear, both during the fishing activity and in the case of the involuntary abandonment of stranded or damaged fishing nets. In this study, the global scientific literature on coralligenous habitat and fishing activities was explored using the VOSviewer software. In addition, the loss of natural capital due to fishing impacts was assessed by implementing a biophysical and tropodynamic environmental accounting model. The investigated study area is the Tremiti Islands Marine Protected Area located in Southern Italy. The results highlight a research gap in the application of ecosystem accounting methods useful to quantify and value natural capital and ecosystem services associated to the coralligenous habitat, and their loss due to human impacts. The results also show a significant loss of natural capital value due to fishing activities in the study area. In conclusion, this study can support local managers and policy makers to achieve sustainable development and biodiversity conservation goals.

Climate changes are increasingly affecting marine ecosystem having general negative effect on their functioning, stability and potentially their resilience against multiple stressors. In this context, analysing decomposition rate in different ecosystems represent an important step to be studied to assess changes in nutrient cycling and carbon dynamic that may play a crucial role on ecosystem multifunctionality i.e. referring to the ability of an ecosystem to sustain multiple function and services simultaneously. Despite the importance of decomposition rate, global climate predictions continue to be hindered by limited data due to the high costs and efforts associated with comparative litter decomposition studies. Here we took advantage of the tea bags decomposition index (TBI) to study pattern of decomposition rate in a lagoon of the Stagnone di Marsala, Western Sicily, by deploying tea bags following a density gradient of seagrass. A seagrass ecosystem has been selected as target testing marine ecosystem as pivotal in services such habitat forming or carbon sequestration and being of the ecosystems facing challenges from climate change and anthropogenic pressures. TBI represents an innovative and cost-effective techniques based on a well standardized curve of decomposition and stabilization rate of two commercially available teas. This represents a cost-effective method allowing for an increased replication in field experiments and, more importantly, the standardized nature of TBI facilitates comparable data collection across different ecosystems. Additionally, due to its high accessibility, the methodology is suitable for sharing with the public and for large-scale application also in citizen science context. Involving the public in this kind of experiments could lead to an increase in data across multiple ecosystems, allowing for more useful replications to enhance comparisons between different ecosystems and achieve more robust results. In this context, TBI represent a salient tool to strength the science-stakeholders interface and facilitate the translational ecology.

Coralligenous reefs are biodiversity hotspots and crucial benthic ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea due to the valuable ecological services they provide. However, they are highly vulnerable to human-induced stressors such as sediment re-suspension, eutrophication, and mechanical disturbances from fishing, anchoring and scuba diving. Additionally, warming events have significantly impacted these reefs, causing mortality among various species, including gorgonians. Among these, Paramuricea clavata is a key structuring species of the coralligenous, as it creates three-dimensional habitats that foster the development of ecological niches and increase assemblage complexity. Despite numerous studies documenting various aspects of these reefs, further research is needed to fully understand the ecological role of P. clavata on the structure of coralligenous benthic communities under different thermal conditions. To investigate the influence of P. clavata on species/taxa richness and composition of the associated benthic community, photographic sampling of coralligenous reefs was conducted during two periods in 2023 (early summer and early autumn) at several Mediterranean sites (Sardinia, Campania, and Sicily) and depths (from 20 to 40 meters) in areas characterized both by the presence and the absence of P. clavata. The thermal environment was continuously measured using temperature loggers throughout the whole study period. The presence of P. clavata was positively associated to taxa richness and the abundance of Alcyonacea, hydroids, encrusting sponges, ramified bryozoans and serpulids, and negatively to the abundance of turf, green and red algae, and massive sponges. Generalized linear latent variable model revealed the combined effects of period, heating event duration, and temperature on the community, also highlighting groups of species/taxa that exhibited similar responses. Identifying functional groups influenced by the presence of a habitat-forming species, alongside the influence of the thermal environment, can provide valuable insights for formulating recommendations for the effective conservation of this priority habitat, highly sensitive to climate change.

Heatwaves are extended periods of abnormally warm temperatures that exceed typical conditions. This phenomenon is occurring with increasing frequency worldwide, particularly in the Mediterranean area. Global warming is linked to the rise of heatwaves, and projections suggest they will become even more severe in the future.

While a growing body of research explores how climate variability affects food web structure, trophic interactions, and potential changes in ecosystem functioning, less is known about the effects of extreme events like summer heatwaves on vulnerable environments. Such environments include Mediterranean coastal lagoons and artificial lakes, which deserve attention as they provide essential goods and ecosystem services.

In this scientific proposal we report the experimental set up and the preliminary results of laboratory experiments performed in summer 2024, with the aim ofstudying the experimental effects of a summer heatwave on two different natural plankton communities collected from an artificial lake (Bidighinzu Lake) and a coastal lagoon (Cabras Lagoon) located in Sardinia (West Mediterranean). The two natural plankton communities include different trophic levels (picoplankton, nanoplankton, microplankton, and mesoplankton) and are incubated separately in laboratory at an increased temperature treatment (+5 °C), in presence and in absence of mesozooplankton. Respectively, mesozooplankton (such as copepods/cladocera) or microzooplankton (namely ciliates) represent the plankton food web top consumers. Different analysis techniques are applied, such as microscopy, flow cytometry and Next-Generation Sequencing.

While most studies have monitored the effects of natural heatwaves on plankton communities, only a few experimental studies have been undertaken to simulate a heatwave in order to mimic a perturbation and to follow its effect on a natural community under controlled conditions in a reproducible manner. Our research aims to fill this gap.

Wetlands have a crucial role as carbon (C) pools. Current wetland degradation negatively impacts their capacity to store carbon and could transform them into strong carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) sources. This could be the case of the Bosco della Mesola (Ferrara), a remnant floodplain forest in the Po Delta, where climate change is already inducing other degradation phenomena like saltwater intrusion and biodiversity loss. Assessing the vertical C fluxes at the water-atmosphere interface might help to understand and possibly reduce CO₂ and CH₄ release by appropriate restoration actions. The study aims to qualitatively determine the trends of the C fluxes and monitor the ecologic impact of climate change in this area. Using a floating flux chamber equipped with a LICOR IRGA, we investigated CO₂ and CH₄ fluxes in 4 different lentic sites, 2 ponds and 2 canals, with salinity gradient, presence/absence of macrophytes, and different bottom sediment organic matter. We will also explore the role of freshwater input in the two canals. The study also lays the basis for the future development of a simplified model that will support the analysis of wetlands carbon fluxes in future climate change scenarios and in response to restoration activities.

This research aims to define an innovative approach for a more efficient, reliable, and integrated study of the coastal marine environment, which can host numerous microorganisms, including enteric pathogens from human or animal feces. It focuses on chemical and microbiological pollutants from human activities and climate change, assessing fecal and pesticide contamination in river and coastal marine environments and evaluating biodiversity impacts by analyzing indicator species in sediments. The fecal bacteria will be characterized at the genetic level to identify their host or environment of origin, serving as indicators of contamination sources. To determine the source of the faecal contamination, water and sediment samples were collected from various locations along the Arzilla River (North Marche coast) and adjacent beach during periods of higher rainfall associated to dramatic drought. A new integrated methodological approach is performed for the determination of fecal indicator bacteria, divided into a traditional cultural method and a molecular diagnostic approach. The former involves isolating pure colonies of Escherichia coli, used to identify phylogroups originating from different animals, while the latter involves the extraction of genomic DNA from bacteria in water and sediment samples, and the q-PCR detection of species-specific Bacteroides associated with MST (Microbial Source Tracking) primers for human, domestic animals, livestock, birds. Preliminary results showed higher levels of faecal bacteria at sites upstream of the Arzilla River after intense rainfall events, suggesting that these areas have significant inputs, likely from point sources of faecal pollution, to Arzilla River, which receives faecally contaminated water. This information can be used to implement corrective actions to minimize risks to public health and the environment. The insights gained from this approach can also inform future research and policy to address the combined effects of climate change impacts.

Climate change is significantly impacting Arctic ecosystems, particularly through the 'Arctic greening'. This process, driven by increased temperatures and precipitation, enhances terrestrial productivity, herbivore density, and associated nutrient inputs. However, effects of increased inputs on Arctic lacustrine ecosystems, which are crucial carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots despite being strongly N-limited, remain poorly understood.

This study investigates the impact of changes in terrestrial vegetation and organic inputs from migratory geese on the basal food sources supporting lake food webs. We analyzed nine shallow lakes along a gradient from the coastline to glaciers on the Brøgger Peninsula, Svalbard, using C and N isotopic analysis to assess nutrient sources in sediment and aquatic vegetation. Bayesian mixing models were employed to quantify the contributions of terrestrial and aquatic vegetation, geese, and aquatic animals to the organic matter (OM) in sediments.

Our findings indicate that nitrogen inputs from geese increased with terrestrial vegetation cover around lakes, directly correlating with N concentrations in aquatic vegetation and sediment. δ15N values in algae also increased with goose density, suggesting their potential as bioindicators of bird-mediated eutrophication in Arctic lakes. The contribution of goose droppings to sediment OM varied between 0 and 22%, increasing with terrestrial vegetation cover. Aquatic animal necromass was the main source of OM, contributing between 30-60% regardless of vegetation cover, highlighting a robust mechanism of internal nutrient recycling in these N-limited ecosystems, driven by the winter freezing of lakes.

Our space-for-time approach suggests that climate change-induced increases in goose density will enhance nutrient inputs in Arctic lakes, characterized by sophisticated internal recycling mechanisms. Increased nutrient concentrations in basal food sources are likely to have cascading effects on higher trophic level consumers. Further research is needed to understand how these changes will affect food web structures and associated ecosystem services under climate change scenarios.

The Italian subalpine lakes are some of the most impacted ecosystems by climate change, leading to increased water stratification. This reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen in the deepest part of the water column, leading to hypoxia and anoxia, which affect all the biologically relevant nutrient cycles. Deep anoxia could manifest effects in the whole lake leading to depleted fish stocks, the emergence of toxic algal blooms, and the decrease in the value of ecosystem services provided. To predict the effects of stratification on the nitrogen cycle, sediment cores from two different lakes (Iseo and Idro) that manifest deep anoxia were sampled and incubated ex-situ keeping temperature and dissolved oxygen concentration as close as possible to in-situ conditions. Cores from oxic and anoxic stations were compared after being analyzed for their physical-chemical properties, solutes and dissolved gas profiles along depth using rhizons and microsensors, quantification of net nutrient fluxes at the sediment-water interface, and the application of the isotope pairing technique to quantify rates of denitrification, dissimilative nitrate reduction to ammonium and anammox. Nitrification rates were quantified by the 15N dilution technique. The results evidenced how anoxic sediments lose the capacity to nitrify. Accordingly, the lack of nitrate significantly decreases denitrification compared to oxic sediments. The anoxic benthic system loses the capacity to release nitrogen as gaseous molecular nitrogen. Instead, the particulate organic nitrogen that settles on anoxic sediments is almost completely recycled and released as ammonia due to mineralization. The accumulation of ammonia in the deep hypolimnion at concentrations of almost ~150 µM poses a serious risk of eutrophication of the euphotic layer if partial or complete mixing of the water column were to happen.

The risk screening toolkit Aquatic Species Invasiveness Screening Kit (AS-ISK), integrated with local experts’ ecological knowledge, was used to evaluate the level of invasiveness of two decapod species, namely Callinectes sapidus and Procambarus clarkii in three assessment areas in Southern Italy: Lesina lagoon, Acquatina lagoon (Apulia) and Stagnone di Marsala (Sicily). These target lagoons were identified in the PRIN - TROPHYC project as specific areas to investigate the biology, trophic ecology, invasion history and impacts of C. sapidus in the Mediterranean Sea.

The blue crab currently occurs in all the three areas, while the red swamp crayfish only in one of them (Lesina), but a future colonisation of the other two target areas cannot be totally excluded considered the high bio-ecological plasticity of the crayfish and the presence of suitable environmental conditions. For example, in the freshwater courses around Acquatina lagoon, P. clarkii is already quite abundant while, in Stagnone di Marsala, it is not reported yet. Thus, to quantify the level of invasiveness of these species in all the three areas, the same information on local ecological context was used, and both species were assessed according to their specific biological and ecological traits and classified by specific threshold values provided by AS-ISK.

Results indicate high level of invasiveness for both species, providing similar scores for the environmental impacts and species nuisance traits in all the three lagoons, with C. sapidus displaying higher scores than P. clarkii. The main difference between the two species is due to the impacts on the commercial sector, which is notably higher in C. sapidus, particularly in Lesina and Acquatina lagoons.

These results confirm that both decapods have the potential to be invasive, but their impacts are mainly related to the local environmental and socio-economic characteristics of the assessment areas.

Sea warming is causing severe physical and chemical changes in marine ecosystems worldwide, which, in turn are affecting the biology and ecology of marine organisms.

To implement the Regional Strategy of Adaptation to Climate Change of the Sardinia Region, safeguarding commercial and/or protected marine species, habitat suitability maps along the Sardinian coastline were created for current and projected (2050) temperature ranges in different IPCC scenarios (RCP 4.5, RCP8.5). Based on different functional traits, thermal tolerance curves were reconstructed from the literature for a bivalve (Mytilus galloprovincialis), two echinoderms (the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus and the sea cucumber Holothuria tubulosa), a seagrass (Posidonia oceanica), and a fish (Mullus barbatus).

For each species, potential variations in habitat suitability for the current period (1987-2010) and the above-mentioned IPCC scenarios (2021-2050) were estimated in terms of quality (from lethal to optimal) and quantity (percentage of change).

In both scenarios, we report a summer decrease in habitat suitability for M. galloprovincialis, with a more pronounced contraction under the warmest scenario. P. lividus could be exposed to a habitat improvement in May, but a decline in summer, more marked under the warmest scenario. In both scenarios H. tubulosa could face an anticipated good habitat condition for reproduction and, again, much worsened conditions in summer. P. oceanica, due to its considerable thermal tolerance, showed minimal habitat contractions (<20%) in August for both scenarios. In both scenarios, males of M. barbatus are expected to face a decreased habitat suitability from May to November and females from June to October, suggesting a considerable variation in the availability of optimal temperature conditions for their recruitment.

Our results, though missing weights for other potential covariates, suggest the need of urgent actions to put in place a strategy to manage exploitation and conservation of the investigated species in the warming future.

In the past two centuries, fossil energy storages accumulated over millions of years have been exploited at an increasing rate to support human economy. Fossil fuels were formed over millions of years from the burial of photosynthetic organisms, including plants on land (mainly generating coal) and plankton in the oceans (mainly generating oil and natural gas). To grow these organisms carbon dioxide was removed from the atmosphere and the ocean, and their burial inhibited the movement of that carbon through the carbon cycle. Burning fossil fuels returns CO₂ back into the atmosphere at a rate that is hundreds to thousands of times faster than it took to be buried, and much faster than it can be removed by the carbon cycle. This affects the Earth system in a variety of ways and represents the primary cause of the current climate change due to the massive emission of greenhouse gases altering the Earth’s dynamics at a global scale. Nearly two-thirds of carbon dioxide emissions, along with a significant amount of nitrous oxide and methane, derive from the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal. This scenario has a strong impact on both human and ecosystem health. In this paper, we review the global scientific literature on energy security with a special focus on biophysical limits, identifying main pathways and possible solutions to ensure long-term environmental sustainability.

Global warming is significantly altering the structure and functioning of aquatic ecosystems. The Mediterranean region is identified as one of the most vulnerable areas to global warming, with artificial lakes and coastal lagoons representing particularly susceptible environments that are crucial for the provision of essential ecosystem goods and services. Predictions indicate rising temperatures as cause of plankton biodiversity loss, favouring smaller species, with profound consequences for the structure and efficiency of the pelagic food web.

With the project "a warmer Future world: effects on plankton communities and pathogens in mediterranean vUlneRable ecosystems" (2022PRIN call - FUTURE), we are studying the effects of climate warming on natural plankton communities in the Mediterranean, including different trophic levels, from picoplankton to mesozooplankton, and applying a traditional approach, mainly optical microscopy and flow cytometry, together with a more advanced molecular basedapproach, mainly Next-Generation Sequencing. We are considering natural plankton communities from two different Mediterranean ecosystems: an artificial lake (Bidighinzu Lake) and a coastal lagoon (Cabras Lagoon) located in Sardinia (West Mediterranean) and part of the Italian Long-Term Ecological Research Network.

With this contribution, we present preliminary results on the seasonal dynamics of different plankton size classes in relation to seasonal variations of water temperature and algal nutrients during the first six months of field activity in the artificial lake and the costal lagoon. These data are essential for planning laboratory experiments to be performed in summer 2024 and aimed at investigating plankton responses to extreme climate events, such as heat waves.

One of the major problems of our century is the rising of the ocean temperatures, causing several consequences on marine ecosystems. One of the most evident phenomena is the coral bleaching, which modify the symbiotic relationship between the polyp and unicellular algae, necessary for the energy balance and survival of the coral system. This project was focused on the development of an innovative experimental method, to be evaluated on a laboratory scale, to study the impact of rising temperatures on coral metabolism, specifically on the pigments in symbiotic algae and on non-polar metabolites. Extractions were performed on two coral species cultivated in the Aquarium of Genoa, Pocillopora damicornis and Stylophora pistillata, following indications from the literature. The pigment analysis was conducted using an HPLC-DAD instrument, detecting the continuous wavelengths in the visible spectrum in the 350 to 700nm window. For non-polar metabolites, an organic solvent extraction and purification procedure was carried out and then analyzed by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC MS) in non-target mode. The collected data were subjected to a statistical analysis and referring to the pigments analysis, significant differences in the medians of the distributions were searched for using the Mann-Whitney tests. For non-polar metabolites, a statistical analysis was carried out comparing the differences between stressed and non-stressed (control) samples and the metabolites identified were put under different classes. In conclusion, this work has shown that the expression of both photosynthetic pigments and non-polar metabolites undergoes significant variations when corals are subjected to temperature variations. Future studies could be conducted eventually, involving more species and more replicates could be tested to ensure statistical robustness and predictive adoption of the selected markers.

´

Aquaculture represents one of the most sustainable and efficient animal and vegetal production system. Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture systems may represent an even better solution; such systems, by combining the co-cultivation of fed aquaculture species (e.g., finfish), with inorganic extractive aquaculture species (e.g., seaweeds) and organic extractive species (e.g., suspension and deposit feeders), could improve economic, social and environmental benefits.

Within this context we should consider aquaculture and restoration combined when we envisage to implement one of the most sustainable approaches to restoration: reproduce to restore. In essence, only a few individuals of animal organisms need to be collected to be reproduced in captivity, enormously amplifying the number of individuals to be implanted, minimizing the number of individuals taken and, therefore, the negative impact on the donor site. In the case of seaweeds, the collection from the donor site may be limited to fertile portions, without any actual removal of whole specimens.

The University of Genoa, in collaboration with Aquadema s.r.l, in the context of the European project Novafoodies and of the National Biodiversity Future Centre, is about to run an experimental IMTA system in the Ligurian Sea (Lavagna, Genova).

The farm was already running as a monoculture farm of Sparus aurata and Dicentrarchus labrax. The add on species for the system are Ostrea edulis and Ericaria amentacea.

The cultivation of the brown canopy forming seaweed Ericaria amentacea in the aquaculture plant could represent a valuable approach for a larger scale production of juveniles of a valuable species for restoration action implementations.

This may represent a new and virtuous form of aquaculture with notable environmental benefits: implementing the culturing phase can become an economic and social opportunity, supporting the development of circular processes, and reducing the ecological impact of aquaculture plants by removing nutrients deriving from feeds and fish wastes.

Lake Trasimeno in Umbria, Italy, is known for its shallow waters and significant natural importance as a Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area, and Ramsar site. The phenomena of 'reed-bed die-back' and fluctuations in water levels at Lake Trasimeno have been previously observed. Marsh habitats play a crucial role in preserving biodiversity by supporting the survival of wild flora and fauna of Community interest, as well as providing valuable ecosystem services.

To aid in the restoration of lake ecosystems with changing water levels, artificial floating islands (AFIs) have been introduced as soilless planting structures. These floating mats consist of aquatic and wetland plants, supporting a variety of ecological communities including algae and zooplankton.

Commonly planted vegetation on AFIs includes reeds, cattails, and irises, which help remove pollutants, enhance biofilms and act as filters for eutrophic waters to improve water quality and the overall ecosystem. Additionally, AFIs, reduce soil erosion processes, and offer protection against leaching phenomena and provide habitats for fish, birds, and insects.

The establishment of a reed bed and the creation of a buffer zone between the fields and the marsh vegetation are vital for the completion of the life cycle of odonates, and play a significant role for Lindenia tetraphylla, a dragonfly species of community interest.

The present study focuses on the development of AFIs, testing different materials to determine the best substrate for plant growth and island flotation. The installation of AFIs in Lake Trasimeno area may allow the restoration of the Phragmites australis community to improve the biological habitat of the species Lindenia tetraphylla.

The EMBRACE Project (PRIN 2022 PNRR) aims to address the restoration of degraded Mediterranean soils and improve the structural and functional biodiversity of their communities by focusing on the valorisation and use of marine biowastes, through a circular economy perspective. Specifically, the approach relies on optimizing the production of energy and organic fertilizers from marine detritus (seagrass litter and fish wastes), reducing its disposal and obtaining organic resources that can foster the recovery of degraded soils. The feasibility of these resources, produced through a combination of anaerobic digestion and composting aided by quarry waste zeolites, will be evaluated in relation to their ability to improve soil natural revegetation and biodiversity, both above- and below-ground.

In terms of seagrass litter, the project focuses on Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile, whose detached leaves accumulate in large amounts on the coasts and, notwithstanding their crucial ecological roles (protection from erosion, biodiversity hosting), are often removed and disposed of to favour tourism. At the same time, fishing activities produce large amounts of wastes that, coupled with seagrass litter, improve necromass C:N:P ratios. The choice of optimal waste proportions (1:3 fish:seagrass) and the addition of zeolites (working as ionic exchanger of NH₄⁺ and Na⁺), favour methanogenic microorganisms in spite of the high salinity. The sustainability of the entire process, from the acquisition of wastes to their processing and the recovery of degraded soils with the produced organic fertilizers is evaluated through Life Cycle Assessment approaches.

The miombo woodlands are a dry forest/seasonal woodland ecosystem found in southern Tropical Africa. Their distribution covers from Angola to Tanzania, and they are characterised by the genera Brachystegia, Julbernardia and Isoberlinia. In this poster we present an innovative approach to inform the ecological restoration of functionally-deprived areas in the western miombo.

We firstly undertook a thorough study of historical and current literature to compile an extensive list of native species from the region. We then collected georeferenced observation data for each from online databases, and cleaned and thinned them to minimise biases. Through species distribution modelling for every taxon with more than 10 “clean” observations we were able to obtain estimates of species richness for each pixel.

The second stage is to collect trait information for each species from trait databases, floras and the analysis of herbarium specimens, and then estimate functional diversity across the area based on trait hypervolumes of the species observed or modelled as potentially present in each pixel.

The expected relationship between species richness and functional diversity under equilibrium conditions is known. Integrating these two lines of evidence will therefore identify regions with functionally-healthy and functionally-deprived ecosystems. By the comparison between these two, we will identify under-represented functions in the latter which will allow the best candidate species for restoration and replanting efforts to be defined.

Sea urchins play a crucial role as marine grazers but face severe threats from overexploitation, significantly affecting the decline of Paracentrotus lividus, an important Mediterranean species.
To face this issue, exploring sustainable strategies like aquaculture is considered profitable despite its slow growth rate posing a challenge. Developing a balanced diet is essential for their growth, and eco-friendly feeds from industrial waste offer a promising solution.
This study investigates the feasibility of using sustainable feeds derived from anchovy processing by-products and industrial carrot waste for sea urchin aquaculture. For the first time, these alternative diets were tested on juvenile sea urchins of various sizes, enabling a comprehensive evaluation of growth performance over time. Experimental diets (D100 and D50) were compared with a commercial pellet control diet. Results indicate that alternative diets can sustain sea urchin growth, although performance varies significantly among diets and sizes. In particular, D50 and control diets exhibit a higher somatic growth rate (SGR) and food conversion ratio (FCR) than D100 diet which shows lower SGR, especially in larger size classes. Chemical analysis reveals significant differences in feed assimilation efficiency and impacts on nitrogen absorption across size classes and diets. Findings suggest that eco-friendly industrial waste feeds can be adopted for sea urchin aquaculture. However, further research is needed to optimize feeding protocols and understand mechanisms affecting growth performance and feed assimilation efficiency. Aligning with circular economy principles, utilizing food waste in aquaculture can aid in conserving overexploited sea urchin stocks and promoting sustainable marine resource management.

The Italian Spring Goby (Orsinigobius punctatissimus) is a critically endangered freshwater fish species native of the River Po plain. It thrives in habitats with spring water, including resurgences and oxbow lakes. Reproduction typically occurs in spring and summer, where suitable substrates such as stones, branches, and leaves are used for eggs laying. Male parental care extends from eggs fertilization until hatching. In the last decades, threats such as spring droughts, climate change, pollution and habitat loss have led to the 70% decline in the distribution of the species across Lombardy region, resulting in habitat fragmentation, decrease of suitable reproductive substrates, and consequently impairments of the reproduction and population decline. Thus, the improvement of reproductive substrate including artificial substrates emerged as a promising conservation strategy for this species. In this study, we tested the efficiency of the improvement of reproductive substrate including hollow bricks into 10 springs where populations of the Italian Spring goby were detected. Springs were visited every two weeks to check for the use and effectiveness of artificial substrates for the reproduction, as well as to measure environmental variables. We observed reproduction and eggs deposition 2 weeks after the substrates were positioned. Multiple depositions were observed in the same hollow brick, with a preference for the smaller holes. Although the holes were also used by the red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) it was possible to detect eggs of the Italian Spring Goby at different developmental stages. These findings indicate that artificial substrates can be used as a safe reproductive refuge and therefore representing a promising strategy for the conservation of Italian Spring Goby populations.

Climate change is affecting water availability, turning many countries into semi-arid or arid. The scarce quantity of water in many countries, as in Mediterranean areas, can form water-repellent barriers (‘’water repellency’’) in the soil, limiting the rate and capacity of water absorption, with dramatic implication for functioning of both natural and agricultural ecosystems and, consequently, for the human well-being. According to UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, which aims to progressively improve land and soil quality, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, the PRIN PNRR SeaForSoil project intends to evaluate an innovative strategy in sustainable agriculture to increase water availability through incorporation of biopolymers derived from marine organisms into soils. Biopolymers could increase soil water content, reduce soil water repellency and improve overall soil quality and, as a consequence, plant growth. Biomasses of marine cyanobacteria and seaweeds, and polysaccharides produced by thermophilic bacteria were investigated for their wetting properties and ability to improve water retention in laboratory-scale soil model. Moreover, to exclude any toxic effects of selected biomasses and biopolymers, both bioluminescence inhibition, based on Vibrio harveyi, and phytotoxicological tests, with Lepidium sativum L. and Sorghum saccarathum L., were performed. The addition of either biomasses or biopolymers in the soil at different doses (0.05 and 0.1 % dry weight) generally slowed water loss compared to the control (without any biomass or biopolymer). The recorded effect depended on the type and dose of either biomass or biopolymer. Biomasses and biopolymers did not significantly affect the bioluminescence emitted by V. harveyi, and did not induce any phytotoxicity response in L. sativum and S. saccharatum, indicating that they were not toxic. These preliminary results allowed us to identify biomasses and biopolymers with optimal characteristics that will be further tested in pot experiments to evaluate their effect on soil quality and plant growth.

Ecosystem restoration plays an important role in maintaining biodiversity and ensuring the resilience of ecosystems to face anthropic and climatic impacts such as heatwaves and extreme events.

To improve the changes of restoring success and to mitigate the biodiversity loss, it is fundamental to have conscience concerning the environmental factors surrounding the implanted organisms and the better experimental techniques and procedures.

The Coralligenous biocoenosis, one of the most important bioconstructions in the Mediterranean Sea, provides fundamental ecosystem services but is severely threatened by human activities and climate change.

Our work aims to develop a restoration protocol based on the recovery of bycatch organisms, testing various existing techniques.

We present first results of this activity, including census data, recovery operations, and the first pilot restoration activities for corals. This research is part of the RENOVATE project (Ecosystem Approach to the Evaluation and Experimentation of Compensation and Mitigation Actions in the Marine Environment: the case of the Civitavecchia Port Hub).

Seagrasses are considered one of the most important shallow-marine ecosystems and ensure, at the global scale, a large plethora of goods and services for their ecological, physical, and economic values.Unfortunately, since the last century, seagrass meadows are rapidlydeclining due to both natural processes and human-mediated impacts. Continual loss of seagrasses coupled with the decline of coastal environmental quality has resulted in national and international legislation and policies for the protection and conservation of seagrass habitat. For this reason, several guidelines were developed focused on mitigation measures to prevent further losses and facilitate recovery through restoration actions. Although both seagrass experimental trials and large-scale transplanting operations have been carried out, little effort has yet been made to define new methods to remotely follow over time the survival and growth of the transplanted fragmentsHere we propose an SfM-based approach for mapping seagrass transplantation areas to produce ultra-high spatial resolution orthophoto mosaics and Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) based on the processing of underwater imagery to digitally create 3D surfaces of such key habits. We applied our approach on a Posidonia transplantation area located in Giglio Island near the site impacted by Costa Concordia shipwrecking. This method provides a valid alternative to traditional methods for creating centimetre-level accuracy cartographic products of living P. oceanica and could be applied to map other complex benthic habitats threatened by natural and anthropogenic factors.

The deterioration of aquatic ecosystems is giving rise to concerns about the quality of water resources and the emission of greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, the restoration of aquatic vegetation has the potential to play an important role in increasing denitrification processes and reducing emissions of nitrous oxide (N₂O) and methane (CH₄). The objective of the project is to evaluate the role of emergent aquatic vegetation in nitrogen removal processes. The project will investigate the equilibrium between dissimilatory and assimilative processes and the environmental factors influencing the emission of N₂O. Nutrient and gas fluxes will be quantified in mesocosms, employing a validated experimental approach. The use of mesocosms, which reproduce the environmental complexity of full-scale systems, will serve as models for the study of the underlying processes that determine the depuration performance of canals and wetlands. The standard biogeochemical methods for estimating the metabolism of aquatic environments will be employed in combination with the "N₂ open-channel" method for the direct measurement of nitrate removal via denitrification as N₂. This method entails the quantification of the N₂:Ar ratio in water samples through the use of MIMS (Membrane Inlet Mass Spectrometry, Bay Instruments). In addition to a comprehensive parameterization of nitrogen removal via denitrification, the primary objective of the study is the quantification of greenhouse gas emissions (N₂O, CH₄). Previous studies have indicated that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from vegetated canals within agricultural landscapes may not be a significant issue. However, our understanding of these processes remains incomplete. It is, therefore, essential to refine this approach and make it more accurate and widely applicable to facilitate its integration into nature-based solutions for water quality improvement in agricultural basins. This will contribute to the achievement of the Water Framework Directive goals without unexpected GHG emissions.