Marco Grillo

• MSc in Marine Sciences
• PhD Student at University of Siena

On September 1st, 2023 three specimens of the blue button Porpita porpita (Lin-naeus, 1758) (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) were found stranded along the store of the Genoa metropolitan area (northwest Mediterranean Sea, Ligurian Sea) as a result of a citizen science contribution. This record represents the second observation of the species in this area after...

Background Plankton is the essential ecological category that occupies the lower levels of aquatic trophic networks, representing a good indicator of environmental change. However, most studies deal with distribution of single species or taxa and do not take into account the complex of biological interactions of the real world that rule the ecologi...

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 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...

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,...

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...

Climate change represents one of the major drivers of habitat modification that is affecting a wide variety of environments. In coastal environments, great effort is being put in trying to understand and forecast the possible effects of such processes, and the Sea-Level Rise (SLR) is one of the most investigated phenomena. This paper describes the...

Zooplankton is a fundamental group in aquatic ecosystems representing the base of the food chain. It forms a link between the lower trophic levels with secondary consumers and shows marked fluctuations in populations with environmental change, especially reacting to heating and water acidification. Marine copepods account for approx. 70% of the abu...

Distributional data on planktic copepods (Crustacea, Copepoda) collected in the framework of the III rd , V th , and X th Expeditions of the Italian National Antarctic Program (PNRA) to the Ross Sea sector from 1987 to 1995 are here provided. Sampling was performed with BIONESS and WP2 nets at 94 sampling stations at depths of 0-1,000 m, with a spe...