Andrea Franzetti

Andrea Franzetti
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca | UNIMIB · Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

PhD

About

229
Publications
70,767
Reads
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7,639
Citations
Additional affiliations
September 2012 - August 2013
Södertörn University
Position
  • Visiting Scientisct
Description
  • Studies on Ecosystem Functions in Baltic sea sediment through metagenomics and metatranscriptomics
December 2008 - present
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
Description
  • Applied and environmental microbiology courses to MSc students.
December 2008 - present
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Position
  • Researcher
Education
November 2004 - December 2007
September 1994 - April 2000
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Field of study
  • Environmental Sciences

Publications

Publications (229)
Article
Full-text available
Wastewater-based epidemiology has emerged as a complementary tool for the monitoring of COVID-19 pandemic waves and for the circulation of viral variants. The selection, standardization, and dynamics of different SARS-CoV-2 RNA targets in wastewater requires further investigation. In the present study, 106 wastewater samples were collected over a 2...
Article
Full-text available
Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a recognized, dynamic approach to monitoring the transmission of pathogens in communities through urban wastewater. This study aimed to detect and quantify influenza A and B viruses in Italian wastewater during the 2022–2023 season (October 2022 to April 2023). A total of 298 wastewater samples were collected...
Article
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Cigarette butt littering poses a significant environmental challenge, with billions of butts discarded each year, fouling ecosystems with slow-to-decompose cellulose acetate filters that absorb and release harmful compounds. In response, an innovative, sustainable approach for valorizing ballot bin waste (BBW) by extracting high-quality cellulose a...
Article
Copper and its alloys, such as brass and bronze, are widely used in heat exchangers valves, fitting, and other components of industrial facilities due to their corrosion resistance, high conductivity, and biocide properties. However, they can suffer of microbial corrosion like or more than other non-toxic materials, as several bacteria and archaea...
Article
Full-text available
Urban trees are crucial in delivering essential ecosystem services, including air pollution mitigation. This service is influenced by plant associated microbiomes, which can degrade hydrocarbons, support tree health, and influence ecological processes. Yet, our understanding of tree microbiomes remains limited, thus affecting our ability to assess...
Article
Full-text available
Glaciers host a variety of cold‐adapted taxa, many of which have not yet been described. Interactions among glacier organisms are even less clear. Understanding ecological interactions is crucial to unravelling the functioning of glacier ecosystems, particularly in light of current glacier retreat. Through a review of the existing literature, we ai...
Article
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The global retreat of glaciers is dramatically altering mountain and high-latitude landscapes, with new ecosystems developing from apparently barren substrates1–4. The study of these emerging ecosystems is critical to understanding how climate change interacts with microhabitat and biotic communities and determines the future of ice-free terrains1,...
Article
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Microbial electrochemical technologies represent innovative approaches to contaminated soil and groundwater remediation and provide a flexible framework for removing organic and inorganic contaminants by integrating electrochemical and biological techniques. To simulate in situ microbial electrochemical treatment of groundwater plumes, this study i...
Article
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Trillion of cigarette butts are annually littered without being recycled. This work aims at valorizing the whole cigarette butts and their components (paper, filter and tobacco) into Fe‐Nx‐C electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in acid and alkaline media. The pristine wastes were pyrolyzed at 450 °C, activated with KOH at 700 °C, bl...
Article
Full-text available
The development of terrestrial ecosystems depends greatly on plant mutualists such as mycorrhizal fungi. The global retreat of glaciers exposes nutrient‐poor substrates in extreme environments and provides a unique opportunity to study early successions of mycorrhizal fungi by assessing their dynamics and drivers. We combined environmental DNA meta...
Experiment Findings
Full-text available
we meticulously adhere to standardized operating procedures (SOPs) for microbiome sampling and DNA extraction to ensure accuracy and reproducibility of results. Rigorous adherence to these protocols is essential to maintaining the integrity of the microbiome data collected from canine subjects. During microbiome sampling, we meticulously follow est...
Article
Full-text available
Diesel contamination of farming soils is of great concern because hydrocarbons are toxic to all forms of life and can potentially enter the food web through crops or plants used for remediation. Data on plant ability to uptake, translocate and accumulate diesel-derived compounds are controversial not only due to the probable diverse attitude of pla...
Article
Full-text available
The mechanisms underlying plant succession remain highly debated. Due to the local scope of most studies, we lack a global quantification of the relative importance of species addition ‘versus’ replacement. We assessed the role of these processes in the variation (β-diversity) of plant communities colonizing the forelands of 46 retreating glaciers...
Article
Contemporary melting glaciers are considered a secondary source of pollutants including radionuclides. Cryoconite - biogenic sediment on the glacier surface - exhibits high concentrations of natural and anthrophogenic radioisotopes. Understanding the interactions between radioisotopes and organisms is essential for evaluating their potential impact...
Article
Full-text available
The worldwide retreat of glaciers is causing a faster than ever increase in ice‐free areas that are leading to the emergence of new ecosystems. Understanding the dynamics of these environments is critical to predicting the consequences of climate change on mountains and at high latitudes. Climatic differences between regions of the world could modu...
Preprint
Full-text available
Diesel contamination of farming soils is of great concern because hydrocarbons are toxic to all forms of life and can potentially enter the food web through crops or plants used for remediation. Data on plant ability to uptake, translocate and accumulate diesel-derived compounds are controversial not only due to the probable diverse attitude of pla...
Article
Full-text available
The Kuril–Kamchatka Trench (North-West Pacific Ocean) is included in the deepest trenches (>9000 m). This study is the first that aims at uncovering the bathyal prokaryotic diversity (1000–2000 m) of this fascinating extreme environment. The analysis of α-diversity revealed that bacterial communities showed greater diversity than archaeal communiti...
Article
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Glaciers are inhabited by various cryophilic organisms ranging from single celled to multicellular, like Tardigrada (water bears). Owing to their scattered distribution, glaciers represent extremely fragmented habitats, and it remains unclear how their inhabitants survive and disperse among such isolated patches. This study investigates the biogeog...
Article
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Pseudomonas is a cosmopolitan genus of bacteria found in soil, water, organic matter, plants and animals and known for the production of glycolipid and lipopeptide biosurfactants. In this study bacteria (laboratory collection number 28E) isolated from soil collected in Spitsbergen were used for biosurfactant production. 16S rRNA sequencing and matr...
Article
Full-text available
Background The Kuril–Kamchatka Trench (maximum depth 9604 m), located in the NW Pacific Ocean, is among the top seven deepest hadal trenches. The work aimed to investigate the unexplored abyssal-hadal prokaryotic communities of this fascinating, but underrated environment. Results As for the bacterial communities, we found that Proteobacteria (56....
Article
Full-text available
Anthropic diesel-derived contamination of Mediterranean coastal waters is of great concern. Nature-based solutions such as phytoremediation are considered promising technologies to remove contaminants from marine environments. The aim of this work was to investigate the tolerance of the Mediterranean autochthonous seaweed Caulerpa prolifera (Forssk...
Article
Full-text available
The accumulation of fallout radionuclides (FRNs) from nuclear weapons testing and nuclear accidents has been evaluated for over half a century in natural environments; however, until recently their distribution and abundance within glaciers have been poorly understood. Following a series of individual studies of FRNs, specifically 137Cs, 241Am and...
Article
Electromethanogenesis is an innovative technology addressing the need of storing renewable energy from un- programmable sources. It allows for the electrochemical production of methane from CO2-rich wastes on mi- crobial cathodes, in a logic of power-to-gas (BEP2G). The challenge of cost-effective and sustainable biocathodes enhancing the microorga...
Article
Full-text available
Following the core theme of a circular economy, a novel strategy to upcycle cigarette butt waste into platinum group metal (PGM)-free metal nitrogen carbon (M-N-C) electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is presented. The experimental route was composed of (i) the transformation of the powdered cigarette butts into carbonaceous char vi...
Article
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Cryoconite holes are small ponds present on the surface of most glaciers filled with meltwater and sediment at the bottom. Although they are characterized by extreme conditions, they host bacterial communities with high taxonomic and functional biodiversity. Despite that evidence for a potential niche for anaerobic microorganisms and anaerobic proc...
Article
Full-text available
Glacier surfaces are the most biologically productive parts of glaciers with a variety of organisms and habitats. However, distinctiveness of habitats and communities of dominant invertebrate consumers on the ice surface is poorly documented. We focused on dominant consumers in three supraglacial (on the glacier surface) habitats on the alpine glac...
Article
Full-text available
Cryoconite holes, ponds full of melting water with sediment on the bottom, are hotspots of biodiversity on glacier surfaces and host dynamic micro-ecosystems. They have been extensively investigated in different areas of the world (e.g., the Arctic, Antarctic, Alps, and Himalaya), but so far no study has described the bacterial communities of the g...
Article
Glaciers are ecosystems and they host active biological communities. Despite their remoteness, glaciers act as cold condensers where high precipitation rates and cold temperatures favor the deposition of pollutants. These contaminants include a broad range of substances, including legacy pollutants, but also compounds still largely used. Some of th...
Article
Removing petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs) from polluted soil is challenging due to their low bioavailability and degradability. In this study, an experiment was carried out to treat soil polluted with petroleum hydrocarbon using a hybrid electro-Fenton (with BDD anode electrode) and biological processes stimulated with long-chain rhamnolipids (biosurf...
Preprint
Full-text available
Mechanisms underlying plant succession remain highly debated. A global quantification of the relative importance of species addition versus replacement is lacking due to the local scope of most studies. We quantified their role in the variation of plant communities colonizing the forelands of 46 retreating glaciers distributed worldwide, using both...
Preprint
Full-text available
Cryoconite holes (water-filled reservoirs) on glacier surfaces are important biodiversity hotspots and biogeochemical factories within terrestrial cryosphere. In this study, we collected cryoconite from the ablation zone of the Forni Glacier (Central Italian Alps) over the whole ablation season. We aimed to describe spatial and temporal patterns in...
Article
Full-text available
Background Microbial communities are found on any part of animal bodies exposed to the environment, and are particularly prominent in the gut, where they play such a major role in the host metabolism and physiology to be considered a “second genome”. These communities, collectively known as “microbiome”, are well studied in humans and model species...
Article
Pollution of agricultural soils by excessive petroleum hydrocarbons (PHs) has recently become a severe worldwide environmental issue. Various approaches have been recently employed to biodegrade PHs and detoxify soils. In the present study, an experimental mesocosm was developed in a bioslurry reactor. Six treatments were applied to degrade PHs-and...
Article
The corrosion behaviour of CuAl10Fe3 was investigated for 120 h in 0.1 M NaCl solution in three different conditions i) presence of active Pseudomonas fluorescens; ii) filtered metabolites; iii) sterilized solution. Electrochemical and physical-chemical characterizations were performed. Bacteria growth and metabolism were verified by UFC count and...
Article
Soil contamination by petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs) causes various acute problems such as crop growth, yield, and grain quality. Many Physico-chemical and biological approaches are employed to remove the PHCs from polluted soil. However, these approaches are too slow and ineffective, and environmentally unfriendly. Indeed, bioelectrochemical system...
Article
Environmental pollution by hydrophobic hydrocarbons is increasing, notably nowadays due to a large amount of industrial activity. Microbial electrochemical technologies (MET) are promising bio-based systems which can oxidize hydrophobic hydrocarbon pollutants and produce bioelectricity simultaneously. However, MET faces some issues in terms of soil...
Article
Microplastic (MP) contamination is ubiquitous and widespread in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, including remote areas. However, information on the presence and distribution of MPs in high-mountain ecosystems, including glaciers, is still limited. The present study aimed at investigating presence, spatial distribution, and patterns of contamina...
Article
Petroleum-contaminated soil is a global problem that must be faced with novel and green technologies in the near future. Considering the toxicity of fossil-based surfactants, microbial surface-active compounds (SACs) have shown various advantages, including high remobilization of hydrocarbons, low toxicity, biodegradability, sustainability, and oth...
Article
Full-text available
Electroactive bacteria have a wide range of applications, including electricity production, bioremediation, and the sensing of toxic compounds. Bacterial biofilm formation is often mediated by the second messenger cyclic guanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP) synthesized by a diguanylate cyclase (DGC). The role of c-di-GMP in the expression of c-type c...
Article
The impact of global warming on biological communities colonizing European alpine ecosystems was recently studied. Hexagonal open top chambers (OTCs) were used for simulating a short‐term in situ warming (estimated around 1°C) in some alpine soils to predict the impact of ongoing climate change on resident microbial communities. Total microbial DNA...
Article
Full-text available
(1) Background: The surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in urban wastewaters allows one to monitor the presence of the virus in a population, including asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals, capturing the real circulation of this pathogen. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of different pre-analytical and analytical methods for ide...
Article
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Every year, deciduous trees shed their leaves, and when new leaves emerge next spring, they establish a characteristic bacterial leaf community. In this exploratory study, we assessed the bacterial phyllosphere (aboveground plant surfaces) of eight London plane trees (Platanus × acerifolia) in Antwerp and Milan by sampling weekly during leaf emerge...
Article
Full-text available
Cryoconite is a mixture of mineral and organic material covering glacial ice, playing important roles in biogeochemical cycles and lowering the albedo of a glacier surface. Understanding the differences in structure of cryoconite across the globe can be important in recognizing past and future changes in supraglacial environments and ice-organisms-...
Article
Pink discoloration defect can cause economic losses for cheese producers due to the impossibility to sell the defected cheese, but few knowledge is currently available on the causes of this defect. To gain more insight on the causes that lead to the formation of pink discoloration in Pecorino Toscano cheese with the Protected Designation of Origin...
Article
Full-text available
Insights into biodiversity and trophic webs are important for understanding ecosystem functions. Although the surfaces of glaciers are one of the most productive and biologically diverse parts of the cryosphere, the links between top consumers, their diet and microbial communities are poorly understood. In this study, for the first time we investig...
Article
Petroleum hydrocarbons (PHs) are used as raw materials in many industries and primary energy sources. However, excessive PHs act as soil pollutants, posing serious threats to living organisms. Various ex-situ or in-situ chemical and biological methods are applied to restore polluted soil. However, most of the chemical treatment methods are expensiv...
Article
Full-text available
Planar MFC prototypes were constructed and experimented to operate as sensors of the anoxic condition in a denitrification tank of a wastewater treatment plant in Italy, during different times in 2018 – 2019. Electrodes were differently enriched with carbon paint containing nanotubes and CeO2 nanoparticles. Performances of different electrodes were...
Article
Full-text available
Cryoconite is a sediment occurring on glacier surfaces worldwide which reduces ice albedo and concentrates glacier surface meltwater into small reservoirs called cryoconite holes. It consists of mineral and biogenic matter, including active microorganisms. This study presents an experimental insight into the influence of sediment oxygenation on the...
Preprint
Full-text available
Cryoconite holes, ponds full of melting water with a sediment on the bottom, are hotspots of biodiversity on glacier surface and host dynamic micro-ecosystems on these extreme environments. They have been extensively investigated in different areas of the world (e.g., Arctic, Antarctic, Alps, and Himalaya), but no study so far has described the bac...
Article
Full-text available
Most of the world’s mountain glaciers have been retreating for more than a century in response to climate change. Glacier retreat is evident on all continents, and the rate of retreat has accelerated during recent decades. Accurate, spatially explicit information on the position of glacier margins over time is useful for analyzing patterns of glaci...
Article
The increasing temperatures at the West Antarctic Peninsula (Maritime Antarctic) could lead to a higher occurrence of snow algal blooms which are ubiquitous events that change the snow coloration, reducing albedo and in turn exacerbating melting. However, there is a limited understanding of snow algae blooms biodiversity, composition, and their fun...
Article
This study presents the findings from several field campaigns carried out in Lake Idro (Northern Italy), a deep (124 m) meromictic-subalpine lake, whose water column is subdivided in a mixolimnion (~0–40 m) and a monimolimnion (~40–124 m). Hydrochemical data highlight two main peculiarities characterizing the Lake Idro meromixis: a) absence of a cl...
Article
Full-text available
Enterobacteriaceae is present in various niches worldwide (i.e., the gastrointestinal tracts of animals, clinical specimens, and diverse environments) and hosts some well-known pathogens (i.e., salmonellas, shigellas and pathogenic coliforms). No investigation has focused on its occurrence in marine salterns, and it is not clear if these hypersalin...
Article
Microbial electrochemical systems utilize the electrochemical interaction between microorganisms and electrode surfaces to convert chemical energy into electrical energy, offering a promise as technologies for wastewater treatments, bioremediation, biofuel production. Recently, growing research attention has been devoted to the development of micro...