Alice Guzzi

Università degli Studi di Genova | UNIGE · Dipartimento di Scienze della terra, dell'ambiente e della vita (DISTAV)

Background The order Isopoda Latreille, 1816 consists of species occurring in terrestrial, marine and freshwater environments. In the Southern Ocean (SO), this group is amongst the most speciose and occur at all depths. Isopoda biogeography, despite being studied since the first Antarctic expeditions, is still poorly known from a geographical point...

The Mediterranean Sea, one of the most sensitive regions to climate change, is experiencing environmental changes due to rising temperatures. Zooplankton communities, particularly copepods, play a vital role in marine ecosystems; however, the dynamics of their distribution remain poorly understood, especially in the Ligurian Sea, and lack baseline...

The correct archiving of data and biological material collected in the field is crucial for the study and conservation of biodiversity, especially with a view to producing "time-proof" data that lasts over time. In this work we present a series of good practices for the most common operational situations, from data collection in the field to the pr...

The Mediterranean Sea, as one of the world’s most climate-sensitive regions, faces significant environmental changes due to rising temperatures. Zooplankton communities, particularly copepods, play a vital role in marine ecosystems, yet their distribution dynamics remain poorly understood, especially in the Ligurian Sea. Leveraging open-source soft...

Background Distributional data on planktonic, benthic and sympagic copepods collected in the framework of the XXXIVth Expeditions of the Italian National Antarctic Programme (PNRA) to the Ross Sea sector from 2018–2019 are here provided. These occurrences correspond to specimens collected from the 25 μm filters used in the desalination plant of the...

The leaflet "Guidelines for photographic documentation MACROORGANISMS" provides practical and essential insights for producing high-quality images, allowing scientific accuracy and detailed documentation of organisms. With advice on lighting, composition and equipment, the flyer guides users through the image acquisition process, ensuring a faithfu...

The leaflet "Guidelines for photographic documentation in the field: MACROORGANISMS" provides a practical guide for capturing high-quality images of macroorganisms in the field offering advice on managing equipment and adapting to environmental conditions. Through insights into portable equipment and on-site composition techniques, the leaflet aims...

L'opuscolo "Linee guida generali prelievo di tessuto MACRORGANISMI" fornisce una sintesi delle direttive PNRR relative alle fasi cruciali per l'acquisizione e la conservazione di campioni tessutali estratti da materiale raccolto, destinati a successive analisi molecolari.

Porifera are one of the dominant components of the marine benthic communities in the Antarctic Sea (44% of the total species are endemic). Despite these data and the various studies on marine biodiversity, the abundance and diversity of sponges on shallow Antarctic reefs and in the deep sea are likely significantly underestimated. In this context,...

The identification of species present in an ecosystem and the assessment of a faunistic inventory is the first step in any ecological survey and conservation effort. Thanks to technological progress, DNA barcoding has sped up species identification and is a great support to morphological taxonomy. In this work, we used a "Reverse Taxonomy" approach...

We report the first record of a stranded specimen of Cymbulia parvidentata, a pteropod species of Atlantic origin, in the Ligurian Sea. On 27 February 2022, six C. peronii and one C. parvidentata were collected on Borgio-Verezzi Beach (Savona, Italy -44.16° N, 8.304633° W). Specimens were examined morphologically and biometrically. Measurements (le...

The Southern Ocean is one of the most exposed regions to climate-related changes on our planet. Better understanding of the current biodiversity and past speciation events, as well as implementation of conservation actions and accurate identification of organisms to species level in this unique environment, is fundamental. In this study, two specie...

DNA barcoding is a powerful and widespread method used to identify large numbers of species collected in the framework of sampling activities in the field. With the exception of research projects that may count on large teams characterized by tasks’ delegation and where many activities may run in parallel, in the majority of cases the barcoding eff...

Global warming is causing significant losses of marine ice around the polar regions. In Antarctica, the retreat of tidewater glaciers is opening up novel, low-energy habitats (fjords) that have the potential to provide a negative feedback loop to climate change. These fjords are being colonized by organisms on and within the sediment and act as a s...

The Southern Ocean represents one of the world regions most sensitive to warming and there is an urgent need for quantitative data to understand changes in coastal communities. This goal can be achieved through the establishment of permanent monitoring sites and robust sampling designs. In this study, we used an emerging, photogrammetry-based techn...

The need for sound baseline information about community structure and composition against which changes can be detected and quantified is a well-recognised priority in Antarctica. Here, the collection of such data is challenging, especially at sea, where long-term monitoring is usually logistically feasible only in the proximity of permanent resear...

This new dataset presents occurrence data for Porifera collected in the Ross Sea, mainly in the Terra Nova Bay area, and curated at the Italian National Antarctic Museum (MNA, section of Genoa). Specimens were collected in 331 different sampling stations at depths ranging from 17 to 1,100 meters in the framework of 17 different Italian Antarctic ex...

e distributional records of Ophiuroidea stored at the Italian National Antarctic Museum (MNA, Sec- tion of Genoa) are presented, corresponding to 1595 individuals that belong to 35 species and 17 genera. Specimens were collected in 106 di erent sampling stations at depths ranging from 21 to 1652 m in the framework of 14 Antarctic expeditions to the...