Donatella Cesaroni

University of Rome Tor Vergata | UNIROMA2 · Dipartimento di Biologia

Volunteers’ contribution to research is growing, especially since the beginning of the 21st century. Given the constant increase of Citizen Science initiatives, recruiting strategies have to be planned properly. Retention is pivotal as well, especially when time is invested in volunteers’ training. However, practically no follow-up data are availab...

Keywords: Biodiversity data, butterflies, citizen science, natural science forum, social networks. ABSTRACT/SUMMARY Forums and social networks store a big deal of data on flora and fauna, collected especially by amateurs. To what extent are these data useful to contribute to biodiversity data systems? In this paper, we addressed the question abou...

Several studies on butterfly ecology and biology of Melitaeini butterflies have been carried out in the past, however the factors affecting butterfly mortality and the role of natural enemies on population dynamics are not yet fully known. Larval survival plays a key role in determining butterfly population size and distribution range; thus, knowin...

Understanding and counteracting biodiversity losses requires quantitative knowledge on species distribution and abundance across space and time, as well as integrated and interoperable information on climate conditions and climatic changes. In this paper we developed a new biodiversity-climate database for Italy, ClimCKmap, based on the critical an...

Aim: To identify the effect of multiple, temporally close, forcing events (i.e. climate-driven habitat fragmentations/homogenizations) in shaping current patterns of biodiversity in alpine areas. Given their spatial configuration, alpine areas have been traditionally seen as islands surrounded by an "ocean" of unsuitable lands. A quantitative asses...

Euphydryas aurinia (Rottemburg, 1775) is one of the most seriously threatened European butterflies, suffering a severe decline in most countries. Although there are several studies on its ecology and biology, the factors affecting its mortality and the role of natural enemies on its population dynamics are yet not fully known. Larval survival play...

In this study, we test the proficiency of DNA barcoding in taxon delimitation of a sample of Delias species. With more than 250 species, Delias is the most speciose and diverse genus of butterflies. Most Delias species show striking colours on the ventral wing surfaces, likely exhibited as aposematic signals to predators. The systematic arrangement...

In this study, we test the proficiency of DNA barcoding in taxon delimitation of a sample of Delias species. With more than 250 species, Delias is the most speciose and diverse genus of butterflies. Most Delias species show striking colours on the ventral wing surfaces, likely exhibited as aposematic signals topredators. The systematic arrangement...

Pheromones are known to play an important role in butterfly courtship and may influence both individual reproductive success and reproductive isolation between species. Recent studies have focused on courtship in Hipparchia butterflies (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) emphasizing morphological and behavioural traits, as well as genetic differences. Behavio...

PCA displaying relative positions of males and females H. fagi pattern of VOCs to different conditions (IN, inside laboratory; OUT, environmental temperature; SUN, after basking; perturbed condition by provoking the flight of butterfly; not perturbed = motionless). Females were measured only when perturbed, all the other measurements were carried o...

Sample size of Hipparchia fagi for each condition in the pilot scheme. (DOCX)

2009 measurement session. (DOCX)

PCA displaying relative positions of males and females H. fagi pattern of VOCs to different conditions (IN, inside laboratory; OUT, environmental temperature; SUN, after basking; perturbed condition by provoking the flight of butterfly; not perturbed = motionless). It is the same plot in S1 Fig but the sensor responses are differently labeled for e...

Box plot of the distribution of each sensor signals of H. fagi and H. hermione males. P-values from the Kruskal-Wallis test are shown. (EPS)

Box plot of the distribution of each sensor signals of H. fagi and H. hermione females. P-values from the Kruskal-Wallis test are shown. (EPS)

Screenshot pc of libra nose software during a measurement session. The response of the i-th sensor (Δ fi) to the i-th compound at concentration c (cj) is given by: Δfi* ꞊ Δ fi / ∑j Δ fi. (TIF)

2010 measurement session. (DOCX)

2007 measurement session: Pilot scheme. (DOCX)

2008 measurement session. (DOCX)

Box plot of the distribution of each sensor signals of H. fagi females and males. P-values from the Kruskal-Wallis test are shown. (EPS)

Box plot of the distribution of each sensor signals of H. hermione females and males. P-values from the Kruskal-Wallis test are shown. (EPS)

Nowadays DNA meta-barcoding is a powerful instrument capable of quickly discovering the biodiversity of an environmental sample by integrating the DNA barcoding approach with High Throughput Sequencing technologies. It mainly consists of the parallel reading of informative genomic fragment/s able to discriminate living entities. Although this appro...

Primer search analysis description The supplementary materials describe the primer search analysis, which was a necessary step due to the sequencing libraries type.

CSMON-LIFE (Citizen Science MONitoring) aims at involving citizens in monitoring Italian biodiversity by a citizen science approach. Novel IT tools for mobile devices have been developed in the framework of the project, providing citizens with a platform for collecting and sharing geo-referenced data of target species. CSMON-LIFE also offered anoth...

DNA Barcodes of the animal species occurring in Italy under the European “Habitats Directive” (92/43/EEC): a reference library for the Italian National Biodiversity Network. DONATELLA CESARONI, STEFANO DE FELICI, GIORGIO RICCARDUCCI, MARCO CIAMBOTTA, ALESSANDRA VENTURA, ELEONORA BIANCHI, VALERIO SBORDONI Keywords: BioCASE, DNA barcoding, National...

Aim: Niche stability areas (NSAs) are portions of the species range where climate conditions remain suitable through time. They represent the core of species ranges. Their distribution and extent, coupled with dispersal and colonization, shape the realized range of species. In this study, we quantified the roles of survival within NSAs and post-gla...

All species concepts are rooted in reproductive, and ultimately genealogical, relations. Genetic data are thus the most important source of information for species delimitation. Current ease of access to genomic data and recent computational advances are blooming a plethora of coalescent-based species delimitation methods. Despite their utility as...

This paper presents the first attempt to build a georeferenced dataset of the butterflies of Bhutan. The huge range of habitats in Bhutan, from subtropical in the south to alpine in the north, presents a wide assemblage of habitat niches for butterflies. The digitized data was collected by four of the authors (Bozano, Wangdi, Sherub and Sbordoni) d...

The most stable isotope of radon, 222Rn, represents the major source of natural radioactivity in confined environments such as mines, caves and houses. In this study, we explored the possible radon-related effects on the genome of Dolichopoda cave crickets (Orthoptera, Rhaphidophoridae) sampled in caves with different concentrations of radon. We an...

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Parnassius apollo (Linnaeus, 1758) is probably the most renowned Eurasian montane butterfly. Its specialized ecology makes it very sensitive to habitat and climate changes, so that it is now experiencing range contraction and local extinction across most of its range. We sequenced 869 bp of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cytochrome oxidase I gene in...

Geographic variation patterns of biological characters and environmental variables are compared by using a procedure employing multivariate analyses, production of contour maps by the kriging method with enclosed validation of estimates, and Mantel tests to assess the significance of comparisons. As biological material we chose a sample of Dolichop...

Morphometric analyses were carried out for 14 cave dwelling populations of Dolichopoda (Orthoptera, Rhaphidophoridae) from peninsular Italy belonging to the laetitiae-geniculata complex. The selected set of variables includes linear measures of body parts and appendages whose variation is expected to be adaptive and to reflect the degree of special...

The difficult and controversial attribution of Hipparchia (Parahipparchia) populations to species or subspecies rank led us to use a comparative, quantitative approach to clarify evolutionary and taxonomic relationships among taxa. Seventeen populations from the Mediterranean area belonging to nine presumptive species or subspecies were sampled, an...

In Central Europe and Asia Minor Zygaena purpuralis and Z. minos are two sibling species exhibiting a considerable geographic variation in several features. In this study we examine some populations from the Central and Southern Apennines (Italy) by comparing multivariate analyses of individual allozymic multilocus profiles and of individual morpho...

In Northern Chiapas (Mexico), two newly discovered species of Procambarus crayfish inhabit a subterranean stream. These species can be morphologically distinguished only by comparing extreme phenotypes (dark, thick-eyed, surface dwelling-like individuals vs light, elongated, microphtalmic, cave dwelling-like individuals). Individuals with intermedi...

In this paper we attempt to investigate relationships between the amount of genetic divergence in nuclear genes and the degree of morphological differentiation for different sets of characters in Dolichopoda cave crickets. Six populations representing five Dolichopoda species from Central and Southern Italy have been studied. The overall genetic di...

This study points out the evidence of a hybrid zone between two groups of genetically differentiated populations of chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) in Turkey. Genetic structure, gene flow and introgression levels, based on 16 allozyme loci, were investigated on 34 population samples spanning the entire C. sativa distribution area in this country....

Length polymorphism of the mtDNA control region was analysed in samples from the sea bass Dicentrarchus labrax before and after acclimation to freshwater. Acclimation trials were repeated twice for two samples originating from the same broodstock. DNA amplification of 221 individuals made it possible to detect 40 different D-loop length variants an...

Length polymorphism of the mtDNA control region was analysed in samples from the sea bass Dicentrarchus labrax before and after acclimation to freshwater. Acclimation trials were repeated twice for two samples originating from the same broodstock. DNA amplification of 221 individuals made it possible to detect 40 different D-loop length variants an...

Mitochondrial DNA length variation in Dicentrurchus Zubrux is the outcome of the simultaneous variation in the copy number of two tandem repeat arrays located in the D-loop region. The repeated sequences, named R17 and R48, are 17 and 48 bp long, respectively. On the basis of 209 individuals collected in eight Mediterranean localities, length varia...

We report a series of investigations carried out on a Dolichopoda population recently discovered in the Poscola cave and in some small caves nearby (Lessini Mountains, Vicenza). This population is located north of Po river, outside the present known geographic range of this genus in Italy. Morphology of the epiphallus corroborated by chromosome and...

Shifts in feeding habits are expected to occur during adaptation to cave life Doltchopoda cave crickets inhabit both natural and artificial caves showing differences in population size, fecundity, phenology and age structure Compared to artificial caves, typically holding a seasonal age structure, populations from natural caves maintain a constantl...

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from the European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax, has been cloned and characterized. Its gene organization was deduced by a comparison of the sequenced termini of different subclones obtained from European seabass mtDNA to the completely-sequenced mtDNAs from carp and freshwater loach. The difference in genome size between...

The difficult and controversial attribution of Hipparchia (Parahipparchia) populations to species or subspecies rank led us to use a comparative, quantitative approach to clarify evolutionary and taxonomic relationships among taxa. Seventeen populations from the Mediterranean area belonging to nine presumptive species or subspecies were sampled, an...

Five species of Dolichopoda cave crickets have been studied by means of mtDNA RFLPs. The phylogenetic relationships among them were previously inferred from two different molecular measures: allozyme polymorphisms and DNA-DNA hybridization. mtDNA data generate a phylogeny exactly matching those obtained from the other two genetic markers. This is n...

Two undescribed species of Procambarus crayfish (Crustacea, Decapoda) inhabit the subterranean stream running in the recently explored Cueva de Los Camarones, Chiapas, Mexico. Individuals ranging from dark, robust, large-eyed forms with an epigean mien to pale, comparatively slender, microphthalmic ones resembling related troglobites were found, bu...

The biological concept of species, which considers either reproductive isolation or the recognition mating system as criteria for the species definition, suffers several operational difficulties. Reproductive isolation can be seldom demonstrated, especially when hybridization and introgressive phenomena occur, when populations are allopatric, and i...

In this paper we will address cave crickets as material, and molecular techniques and multivariate morphometrics as methods, to investigate problems of systematics (i.e.: classification and phylogenetic inference) at the species level, by means of a microevolutionary approach. This outlines a field laying at the interface between population genetic...

The recently explored Cueva de Los Camarones, in the remote village of Constitucion, Chiapas, Mexico, houses a unique highly variable population of Procambarus crayfish (Crustacea, Decapoda). Morphologically, a more or less clinal variation is revealed at several features such as the degree of rudimentation in both pigmentation and eye, and the elo...

The genus Typhlocirolana includes six species discontinuously distributed in underground freshwater systems throughout southern Mediterranean coasts. The recent discovery of a Sicilian population of Typhlocirolana morphologically close to T. moraguesi from the Balearic Islands raised two issues: the taxonomic status of the Sicilian population and t...

Twenty-five populations of Dolichopoda cave crickets from Central-Southern Italy have been surveyed for allozyme variation at the products of 15 structural gene loci. The samples, as characterized on morphological bases, included six local populations of D. schiavazzii, one of D. aegilion, three of D. baccettii, six of D. laetitiae and nine of D. g...