Fabrizio Serena

• DSc
• Associate Senior Researcher at Institute for Biological Resources and Marine Biotechnology (IRBIM), National Research Council – CNR, Via Vaccara, 61 – 91026, Mazara del Vallo (Tp), Italy

Most caves in temperate regions are energy-poor, leading to low richness and abundances of terrestrial macroinvertebrates. However, caves with abundant bat populations may represent a notable exception, as bat guano serves as a significant source of organic matter, supporting diverse specialized invertebrates. Yet, given the overall rarity of guano...

This study investigates the growth and calcification of the appendicular skeleton in Raja asterias (Delaroche, 1809), a member of the Batoidea, to explore the relationship between histomorphology and the mechanics of batoid locomotion within the water column. Although much prior research has focused on the “tessellated pattern” in these fishes, the...

Short summary: Guano-rich caves in temperate regions host rich subterranean communities. These systems, by depending on bat guano as a key resource, may be especially sensitive to climate change.

Libya has the longest coastline in the southern Mediterranean Sea, which is distinguished by the diversity of habitats and marine species; chondrichthyans are one component of this diversity. They are vulnerable to overexploitation due to their reproduction pattern and are generally regarded as a few resilient species. A total of 59 Elasmobranchs b...

Simple Summary Before calcification, the early skeletal development of both Homo sapiens and the chondrichthyan fish Raja asterias is exclusively cartilaginous. This cartilage is formed through tissue segmentation and chondrocyte mitoses. Mineral deposition in the cartilage matrix influences the stiffness and shape of the skeletal segments. In mamm...

Before calcification begins, the early embryonic and fetal skeletal development of both mammalian Homo sapiens and the chondrichthyan fish Raja asterias consists exclusively of cartilage. This cartilage is formed and shaped through processes involving tissue segmentation and the frequency, distribution, and orientation of chondrocyte mitoses. In th...

Natural History Museums play a key role in supporting biodiversity research and nature conservation. They are fundamental to preserving the historical heritage of fauna, reflecting its past and present biodiversity. The present contribution reports some case studies based on Doderlein’s zoological collections at the University of Palermo. An invent...

The conservation and management of marine ecosystems hinge on a comprehensive understanding of the status and trends of top predators. This review delves into the ecological significance of marine top predators, examining their roles in maintaining ecosystem stability and functioning through an integrated analysis of current scientific literature....

Simple Summary Sharks and rays are threatened by human activities like fishing and climate change. Many of these species are at risk of extinction. Despite efforts, we still do not know enough about the biology of some species. This lack of information is often correlated to inaccessible habitats, as in the case of the Bramble shark, Echinorhinus b...

Chondrichthyans (sharks, rays, and chimaeras) are highly susceptible to the impacts of fisheries due to their vulnerable life-history traits. Over the last 100 years, several cases of local extinction have been documented in heavily fished areas across the Mediterranean Sea. In the Strait of Sicily (SoS), one of the main demersal fishing grounds of...

This brief research report presents the 2022 updated IUCN Red List for the cartilaginous fish fauna (76 species) recorded in the Italian seas and compares it with the 2013 assessment. Overall, the number of Data Deficient (DD) species decreased in favor of both threatened and unthreatened categories. Out of five DD species in the 2013 assessment, t...

Chondrichthyans are considered a highly threatened marine species, due both to the intense fishing pressure they have experienced in the world’s Oceans over several decades, and other threats, such as habitat loss, climate change and marine pollution. A rapid decline in their populations could trigger significant negative changes in marine ecosyste...

This file is a corrigenda of the chapter Chondrichthyans published in the book "IDENTIFICATION GUIDE OF VULNERABLE SPECIES INCIDENTALLY CAUGHT IN MEDITERRANEAN FISHERIES"

This article is targeted to vulnerable species such as Marin mammals, Sea turtles, Sea birds and chondrichthyans

The shark Squalus albicaudus, categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list as Data Deficient due to lack of minimal information for classification, is distributed throughout the Brazilian coast. High pressures such as overfishing and anthropic activities, as well as certain biological characteristics, including k strat...

Simple Summary The Raja miraletus species complex exhibits high levels of morphological and ecological stasis along with the antipodean distribution in the Eastern Atlantic and Indian Oceans. We investigated genetic variability and differentiation between taxa and geographical populations by integrating mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers. The ex...

Between 2007 and 2022, 112 specimens of newborn and young pelagic sharks were recorded in the waters of Tuscany Region, in the South Ligurian–North Tyrrhenian Seas (north-western Mediterranean basin). The sharks belonged to the Carcharhinus plumbeus (n = 14), Prionace glauca (n = 66), Isurus oxyrinchus (n = 16), Mobula mobular (n = 5) Alopias vulpi...

The thornback ray ( Raja clavata ) is the most important chondrichthyan in terms of landings in the Mediterranean Sea. Intense harvesting may induce negative genetic effects reducing the resilience of overfished species. For this reason, genetic diversity information should be considered in fisheries management and conservation policies. Microsatel...

Among the main measures adopted to reduce anthropogenic impacts on elasmobranch communities, understanding the ecology of deep-sea sharks is of paramount importance, especially for potentially vulnerable species highly represented in the bycatch composition of commercial fisheries such as the blackmouth catshark Galeus melastomus. In the present wo...

Accurate checklists of species are essential for evaluating their conservation status and for understanding more about their distribution, biology and ecology and, therefore, the first step in order to effectively protect them. According to the existing literature, the Greek seas are rich in chondrichthyan biodiversity and herein, we update the mos...

A specimen of Synagrops japonicus was collected in the north-western Mediterranean during an exploratory cruise using bottom trawl nets, aimed at the evaluation of possible consequences of lost at sea drums containing toxic materials. The discovery of this specimen follows the first record that occurred in the same area 28 years previously, fished...

Centrophorus uyato (Rafinesque, 1810) has a complicated nomenclatural history which has led to multiple scientific names being ascribed to this species. In the Mediterranean Sea, and elsewhere in its range, this species was previously referred to as C. granulosus (Bloch & Schneider, 1801). The first paper in this revision series clarified that C. g...

Elasmobranchii (sharks and rays), which have peculiar and vulnerable life-history traits, are highly threatened by fishing activities. Indeed, between 53% and 71% of Mediterranean elasmobranch species are at risk of extinction. In this context, using the abundance MSY (AMSY) model, the present study provides an assessment of 20 batoids and 16 shark...

The current shift of fishery efforts towards the deep sea is raising concern about the vulnerability of deep-water sharks, which are often poorly studied and characterized by problematic taxonomy. For instance, in the Mediterranean Sea the taxonomy of genus Centrophorus has not been clearly unravelled yet. Since proper identification of the species...

1. The Mediterranean starry ray (Raja asterias) populations within the Mediterranean Sea are susceptible to high rates of bycatch in the multispecies trawl fisheries. Understanding its population structure and identifying critical habitats are crucial for assessing species vulnerability and setting the groundwork for specific management measures to...

Chondrichthyans are apex predators influencing the trophic web through a top-down process thus their depletion will affect the remaining biota. Notwithstanding that, research on chondrichthyans is sparse or data-limited in several biogeographic areas worldwide, including the Levantine Sea. We revise and update the knowledge of chondrichthyans in Cy...

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a “Green List of Species” (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species’ progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 s...

Chondrichthyan egg cases are important elements for species-specific identification and also provide a valuable aid in determining a species spatial distribution, as well as for defining spawning areas. Considering the absence of a general key for the identification of the egg cases of the Mediterranean Chondrichthyes, this work aims to fill this g...

The actual occurrence of Squalus megalops in the Mediterranean Sea has recently been questioned. Several research works which sought to assess available morphological and meristic features that differentiate S. megalops from other Squalus species in the Mediterranean Sea, revealed poor discriminatory power and high variability of the assessed chara...

This paper aims at collating and reviewing all data collected using the ESCA (Ecological Status of Coralligenous Assemblages) index from 2009 to 2018 during different local applications, in order to evaluate at large spatial scale its effectiveness and temporal variability. To this scope, the large-scale response of ESCA to anthropogenic disturbanc...

In November 2015 an immature male individual of great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias (Linnaeus 1758), was caught as by-catch by a bottom trawler in the Strait of Sicily, in the Central Mediterranean Sea. The shark, reaching 266 cm in length and weighing 290 Kg, was identified and measured by means of a video provided by fishers. This record is...

IUCN Red List Species Assessment

In November 2015 an immature male individual of great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias (Linnaeus 1758), was caught as by-catch by a bottom trawler in the Strait of Sicily, in the Central Mediterranean Sea. The shark, reaching 266 cm in length and weighing 290 Kg, was identified and measured by means of a video provided by fishers. This record is...

Zava B., Insacco G., Corsini-Foka M., Serena F. 2020. Updating records of Squatina aculeata (Elasmobranchii: Squatiniformes: Squatinidae) in the Mediterranean Sea. Acta Ichthyol. Piscat. 50 (4): 401-411. Background. The decline of the populations of the three Critically Endangered species Squatina aculeata Cuvier, 1829, Squatina oculata Bonaparte,...

Species diversity assessments are an important step to evaluate the conservation status of a community, both in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. These assessments are pivotal if related to both, the constant increase of human pressure on ecosystems and the anthropogenic climate change occurring nowadays. Sharks and rays are globally threatened, a...

In this paper a rare case of a double swordfish mortal attack against an adult blue shark ( Prionace glauca ) is reported. A female blue shark, with a total length of 3 m, was found stranded along the southern Sicilian coast (Strait of Sicily, Mediterranean Sea) on 30 May 2018. The analysis of this carcass revealed the presence of two swordfish bil...

Abstract The Mediterranean Large Elasmobranchs Monitoring (MEDLEM) database contains more than 3,000 records (with more than 4,000 individuals) of large elasmobranch species from 21 different countries around the Mediterranean and Black seas, observed from 1666 to 2017. The principal species included in the archive are the devil ray (1,868 individu...

The Mediterranean Large Elasmobranchs Monitoring (MEDLEM) database contains over 3000 records (more than 4000 individuals) of large elasmobranch species from 20 different countries around the Mediterranean and Black seas, observed from 1666 to 2017. The main species included in the archive are the devil fish (1 813 individuals), the basking shark (...

Aim Determine the evolutionary origin of the heretofore poorly characterized contemporary Great White Shark (GWS; Carcharodon carcharias ) of the Mediterranean Sea, using phylogenetic and dispersal vicariance analyses to trace back its global palaeo‐migration pattern. Location Mediterranean Sea. Taxon Carcharodon carcharias . Methods We have bui...

A small poster for the identification of sharks, skates and rays regulated by law in Italy.

Three species of angel shark are present in the Mediterranean: the Sawback Angelshark Squatina aculeata, the Smoothback Angelshark S. oculata, and the Angelshark S. squatina. All three are classified as Critically Endangered. This Regional Action Plan is designed to focus efforts and will aid in increasing the profile of angel sharks in the Medite...

The Mediterranean is a hotspot of extinction risk for chondrichthyans, making it a priority region for conservation action. Angel sharks are an example of one of the families where all species present in the region are threatened. The Mediterranean Angel Sharks: Regional Action Plan provides a conservation roadmap and acts as a call to action for s...

Summary: Marine litter is one of the main sources of anthropogenic pollution in the marine ecosystem, with plastic representing a global threat. This paper aims to assess the spatial distribution of plastic macro-litter on the seafloor, identifying accumulation hotspots at a northern Mediterranean scale. Density indices (items km–2) from the MEDITS...

Thanks to the availability of the MEDITS survey data, a standardized picture of the occurrence and abundance of demersal Chondrichthyes in the northern Mediterranean has been obtained. During the spring-summer period between 2012 and 2015, 41 Chondrichthyes, including 18 sharks (5 orders and 11 families), 22 batoids (3 orders and 4 families) and 1...

Conservation of apex predators is a key challenge both in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The white shark is a rare but persistent inhabitant of the Mediterranean Sea and it is currently assessed as “critically endangered” in the region. However, the population trends and dynamics of this species in the area are still unknown. Little is known ab...

The three angelshark species living in the Mediterranean Sea, Squatina aculeata Cuvier, 1829, S. oculata Bonaparte, 1840 and S. squatina (Linnaeus, 1758), are listed as Critically Endangered Species for the basin. Alerted fishermen operating in the central and eastern Mediterranean waters provided information on the accidental capture of S. aculeat...

The three angelshark species living in the Mediterranean Sea, Squatina aculeata Cuvier, 1829, S. oculata Bonaparte, 1840 and S. squatina (Linnaeus, 1758), are listed as Critically Endangered Species for the basin. Alerted fishermen operating in the central and eastern Mediterranean waters provided information on the accidental capture of S. aculeat...

Conservation of apex predators is a key challenge both in marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and sharks represent one of the most endangered groups in the ocean as a consequence of fishing exploitation, high vulnerability and a generalized lack of data on ecology and conservation status. This situation is particularly critical in the Mediterranean...

Sharks represent one of the globally most endangered groups of fish, particularly in the Mediterranean Sea where 57% of the species are considered threatened by the IUCN. Occurrence sightings are increasingly scarcer in the area and targeted surveys are rare and limited to specific sectors. However new opportunities are emerging to exploit unconven...

This identification guide has been developed to support the monitoring of bycatch of vulnerable species in Mediterranean fisheries. The work has been produced within the context of the project “Understanding Mediterranean multi-taxa ‘bycatch’ of vulnerable species and testing mitigation– a collaborative approach” funded by MAVA Foundation through a...

Healthy and productive marine ecosystems are important means of supporting maximum sustainable yield and blue growth. However, fisheries and other anthropogenic threats (e.g. pollution, habitat pressure, climate change or the introduction of non-indigenous species) can have potentially negative effects on the marine environment and ecosystems. In t...

This short note describes the first record of the Norwegian skate, Dipturus nidarosiensis (Storm, 1881), in the Strait of Sicily. A male specimen of 95.6 cm total length and 3466 g weight was caught on December 2017 during a bottom trawl survey at a mean depth of 551 m. Information on biometric, sexual maturity, stomach content, and age estimation...

Maturity is one of the most relevant biological parameters used in stock assessment programmes. Indeed, the macroscopic stage of gonadal development is an essential feature in estimating the maturity ogive and spawning stock biomass (SSB). It is also useful for determining the spawning season of a species and for monitoring long-term changes in the...

• Coralligenous reefs represent one of the most important coastal ecosystems of the Mediterranean Sea, and their ecological quality must be assessed under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive to evaluate seafloor integrity. An effective standardized monitoring protocol is urgently needed in order to compare data at the Mediterranean scale and to...

The methods used to study shallow coralligenous reefs are reviewed to select a unified procedure able to optimize sampling effort, to select the most effective ecological descriptors to evaluate the responses of coralligenous assemblages to anthropogenic pressures and to synthesize available information in an integrated and standardized procedure n...

Few stock assessments of elasmobranchs have been conducted in the Mediterranean due to the lack of available detailed and precise information. In recent years, in the Mediterranean Sea a major concern on the status of this group does exist and consequently scientists and managers have paid a major attention on the collection of data of fisheries in...

The MEDLEM database wants to contribute to an improvement of the knowledge on presence, spatial distribution and by catch of large elasmobranchs species in the Mediterranean and Black seas. The Mediterranean basin shows a fish biodiversity and absolute number of species relatively high. In fact, about 6% of the entire world’s fish species occur in it...

The 2018 edition of The State of Mediterranean and Black Sea Fisheries (SoMFi 2018), the flagship publication of the GFCM, provides a comprehensive overview of regional and subregional trends in Mediterranean and Black Sea fisheries. Bringing together data and indicators submitted by GFCM contracting and cooperating non-contracting parties on stoc...

Mediterranean Sea 11 pages 2 tables 2 figures AbastractBSTRACT A specimen of Synagrops japonicus was collected in the northwestern Mediterranean during a scientific cruise using bottom trawl nets, carried out under the investigation on the consequences of the lost at sea of the drums stowed on the deck of the Eurocargo Venezia-Grimaldi Lines (Fig....

Sharks are among the most endangered group of animals in the world, and in the Mediterranean Sea they have shown steep declines both in coastal and pelagic ecosystems. Of the 40 species of sharks occurring in the Mediterranean Sea, 57% are classified by the IUCN as threatened (vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered), of which 30% are crit...

Background The unique and complex paleoclimatic and paleogeographic events which affected the Mediterranean Sea since late Miocene deeply influenced the distribution and evolution of marine organisms and shaped their genetic structure. Following the Messinian salinity crisis and the sea-level fluctuations during the Pleistocene, several Mediterrane...

PCR and sequencing primers PCR and sequencing primers. Primer pairs and annealing temperatures (Ta) used to amplify and sequencing the three mitochondrial DNA fragments in the four elasmobranch species. The annealing temperatures for the PCR reactions are also reported. GM= G. melastomus; SC, S. canicula; RC, R. clavata; RM, R. miraletus.

mtDNA alignment of Raja miraletus

Sample and sequence metadata Sample and sequence metadata detailing the species considered, the sample name and alignment code, the sub-basin, geographical area and sampling location with available coordinates and year of collection. In addition, haplotype GenBank accession numbers are listed for each individual sample and marker. Public records of...

mtDNA alignment of Galeus melastomus.

mtDNA alignment of Raja clavata.

mtDNA alignment of Scyliorhinus canicula

Cephalopods are considered as the most important preys in top predator diet. As the rapid digestion that cephalopod flesh is subjected to makes it difficult to identify the prey, this study focuses on an analysis of cephalopod beaks detected in the stomach content of striped dolphins, Stenella coeruleoalba (N. 4, males, TL mean 203 cm 4) and bottle...

Marine litter is any persistent, manufactured or processed solid material discarded, disposed of or abandoned in the marine and coastal environment. Ingestion of marine litter can have lethal and sub-lethal effects on wildlife that accidentally ingests it, and sea turtles are particularly susceptible to this threat. The European Commission drafted...

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the application of multiple environmental descriptors through an asymmetrical sampling design to detect possible impacts related to the Costa Concordia event on the coastal marine environment. The Costa Concordia shipwreck occurred on a submerged rocky reef in the north-western Mediterranean...

The ESCA (Ecological Status of Coralligenous Assemblages) index was developed to assess the ecological quality of coralligenous habitat using macroalgae as a biological indicator. The aim of this study was to evaluate the response to human-induced pressures of macroalgae and sessile macro-invertebrates shaping the coralligenous habitat and to integ...

Europe has a long tradition of exploiting marine fishes and is promoting marine economic activity through its Blue Growth strategy. This increase in anthropogenic pressure, along with climate change, threatens the biodiversity of fishes and food security. Here, we examine the conservation status of 1,020 species of European marine fishes and identi...

1. This study compared the results obtained through the concurrent use of the two indices ESCA (Ecological Status of Coralligenous Assemblages) and COARSE (COralligenous Assessment by ReefScape Estimate) to define the ecological status of coralligenous reefs. 2. The study evaluated: i) the effectiveness of the two indices at a regional spatial scal...

The main objectives of this research are: 1) the creation of an expert network for the evaluation of the extinction risk of marine bony fish species in Italy; 2) the evaluation of the extinction risk for marine bony fish species; 3) the creation of a baseline for future evaluations of the trends in biodiversity conservation in Italy. The assessment...

The Mediterranean starry ray, Raja asterias, considered endemic in the Mediterranean, has recently been reported by other authors from Atlantic fisheries in southern Portugal and northern Morocco. There has been, however, no substantiated record of the species outside the Mediterranean. This fact and the easiness of confusion of R. asterias with ot...

Cartilaginous fish are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic stressors and environmental change because of their K-selected reproductive strategy. Accurate data from scientific surveys and landings are essential to assess conservation status and to develop robust protection and management plans. Currently available data are often incomplete or i...

Summary of all barcoded Mediterranean Chondrichthyans generated by the integration of data from the three main barcoding initiatives by Moftah et al. (2011), Landi et al. (2014) and ELASMOMED, as well as other available studies (reported under the column OTHER). Both the number of barcode records obtained from Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean sp...

The GenBank Accession Numbers, BIN, Sample ID and Process ID of the 882 Mediterranean chondrichthyan individuals successfully barcoded by ELASMOMED. (XLSX)

Haplotype parsimony networks of Dasyatis pastinaca reconstructed using ELASMOMED COI barcode sequences. Each circle represents one haplotype and its size is proportional to frequency. Colours indicate the origin of samples according to FAO fishing divisions. (TIF)

Complete list of mutations and positions characterizing each haplotype displayed in Fig 4. For each species, the number of sequences used and the length of the alignment are reported. (XLSX)

Summary of taxa and individuals collected and barcoded for the ELASMOMED initiative. The number of collected and barcoded individuals are reported for each chondrichthyan species and each FAO division as well as in total. (XLSX)

The Mediterranean starry ray, Raja asterias, considered endemic in the Mediterranean, has recently been reported by other authors from Atlantic fisheries in southern Portugal and northern Morocco. There has been, however, no substantiated record of the species outside the Mediterranean. This fact and the easiness of confusion of R. asterias with ot...