Marco Isaia

Università degli Studi di Torino | UNITO · Life Science and Systems Biology

Beetles of the genus Duvalius are widely distributed in subterranean habitats across the Palearctic, from SW Europe in the West to central Asia and China in the East. The genus is also recorded from Sicily, where nine species are currently known. Duvalius hartigi was described in 2006 on material collected in lava caves of Mount Etna and since then...

Knowledge on Sardinian cave spiders started with Angela Gozo’s 1908 description of the female of Lepthyphantes sardous. Because Gozo’s original specimens appear to be lost, we visited Gozo’s type location (Su Marmuri cave, Ogliastra, Sardinia) in an effort to find the as yet unknown male and to collect topotypic specimens on which a new diagnosis a...

In this work we report about the finding of Tenuiphantes monachus (Araneae, Linyphiidae) on the rock glacier Colle Nord Cime Bianche 1 (Breuil basin, Valtournenche, Aosta Valley,Italy). It is an Alpine endemic species rarely found in Italy, and here reported for the first time in Aosta Valley.

Subterranean ecosystems host unique biodiversity and deliver important services to humans. Yet, available data for subterranean ecosystems are limited in space and/or taxonomic scope and global monitoring programs are absent, preventing practitioners to develop effective conservation and management strategies. Expert opinion may help overcome some...

Spiders of the genus Troglohyphantes (Araneae: Linyphiidae) exemplify one of the largest subterranean adaptive radiation across European mountain ranges, counting over 130 species and representing about one fifth of total species richness of cave spiders in Europe. Despite the emerging potential of Troglohyphantes as a biogeographical model, no att...

Alien species are a significant threat to natural ecosystems and human economies. Despite global efforts to address this challenge, the documented number of alien species is rapidly increasing worldwide. However, the magnitude of the impact of alien species may vary significantly across habitats. For example, some habitats are naturally less prone...

Understanding how species assemble into communities is a central tenet in ecology. One of the most elusive questions is the relative contribution of environmental filtering versus limiting similarity. Important advances in this area have been achieved by looking at communities through a functional lens (i.e., the traits they express), so as to deri...

Anthropogenic disturbance on natural ecosystems is growing in frequency and magnitude affecting all ecosystems components. Understanding the response of different types of biocoenosis to human disturbance is urgently needed and it can be achieved by adopting a metacommunity framework. With the aid of advanced molecular techniques, we investigated s...

While microbial communities in limestone caves across the world are relatively understood, knowledge of the microbial composition in lava tubes is lagging behind. These caves are found in volcanic regions worldwide and are typically lined with multicolored microbial mats on their walls and ceilings. The Mount Etna (Sicily, S-Italy) represents one o...

The conversion of wild caves into tourist sites poses serious threats to the conservation of subterranean environments. Among them, the extensive growth of photosynthetic biofilms induced by artificial lighting—the so-called lampenflora —is of particular concern for cave managers. The identification of cost-effective management actions controlling...

To date, the highly adapted cave microbial communities are challenged by the expanding anthropization of these subterranean habitats. Although recent advances in characterizing show-caves microbiome composition and functionality, the anthropic effect on promoting the establishment, or reducing the presence of specific microbial guilds has never bee...

Vesubia jugorum (Simon, 1881) (Lycosidae Sundevall, 1833) is a wolf spider inhabiting high altitude rocky areas of the Southwestern Alps. Due to its restricted geographic range, its sensitivity to global warming and its continuing decline, this species has been recently assessed as Endangered (EN) by the IUCN Red List. On the basis of the research...

Subterranean ecosystems host unique biodiversity and deliver important services to humans. Yet, available data for subterranean ecosystems are limited in space and/or taxonomic scope and global monitoring programs are absent, preventing practitioners to develop effective conservation and management strategies. Expert opinion may help overcome some...

The ant subfamily Leptanillinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) consists of minute soil-dwelling species, with several genera within this clade being based solely upon males, including Yavnella Kugler. The dissociation of males and workers has resulted in taxonomic confusion for the Leptanillinae. We here describe the worker caste of Yavnella, facilitate...

The touristic use of caves causes multiple environmental alterations to the subterranean ecosystem, having potential effects on all components, from the atmosphere to lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. Setting a baseline on the current knowledge of the ecological status of world show caves is pivotal to implement monitoring and management pro...

Wetlands, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, are increasingly subjected to area loss and degradation due to land-use and climate changes. These factors impact their unique biodiversity, including numerous invertebrates that depend on them. Here we investigated the current and future habitat suitability of the aquatic spiders Argyro...

The Su Marmuri cave is located at 874 m a.s.l. on Tisiddu Mountain (Ulassai). A huge sinkhole, evidence of an ancient water drainage, gives access to a large, mostly horizontal, underground tunnel. The difference in height from the entrance to the sinkhole is ~35 m, and the length of the tunnel is about 900 m. Su Marmuri is a remarkable geoheritage...

Speleothems in show caves are often subjected to tourism-driven alterations, including corrosion due to CO2 increase, undersaturated water and photosynthetic biofilms (e.g. Piano et al., 2015; Pulido-Bosch et al., 1997; White et al., 2021). In particular, the growth of the so-called “lampenflora” causes physical, chemical and aesthetic damage to sp...

In the internet era, the digital architecture that keeps us connected and informed may also amplify the spread of misinformation. This problem is gaining global attention, as evidence accumulates that misinformation may interfere with democratic processes and undermine collective responses to environmental and health crises. In an increasingly poll...

The genus Troglohyphantes Joseph, 1882 (Araneae, Linyphiidae) includes 131 species, mainly distributed across the main European mountain ranges. The Alps and the north-western Dinarides account for 66 species, most of them showing narrow or even point-like distributions. The majority of Troglohyphantes spiders dwell in subterranean habitats includi...

Subterranean ecosystems are among the most widespread environments on Earth, yet we still have poor knowledge of their biodiversity. To raise awareness of subterranean ecosystems, the essential services they provide, and their unique conservation challenges, 2021 and 2022 were designated International Years of Caves and Karst. As these ecosystems h...

The metacommunity framework has been rarely adopted to investigate the underlying ecological mechanisms shaping microbial communities. With the aid of advanced molecular techniques, we investigated sediment communities of Fungi, Bacteria and Archaea in four Italian show caves aiming to disentangle the effects induced by tourists on species richness...

The genus Troglohyphantes Joseph, 1881 (Araneae, Linyphiidae) includes 131 species, mainly distributed across the main European mountain ranges. The Alps and the North-western Dinarides account for 66 species, most of them showing narrow or even point-like distributions. The majority of Troglohyphantes spiders dwell in subterranean habitats includi...

Species traits are an essential currency in ecology, evolution, biogeography, and conservation biology. However, trait databases are unavailable for most organisms, especially those living in difficult-to- access habitats such as caves and other subterranean ecosystems. We compiled an expert-curated trait database for subterranean spiders in Europe...

The integration of multiple lines of evidence in the delimitation of taxa is becoming the gold standard in modern taxonomy and systematics. However, multi-layered taxonomy is still incipient when it comes to species description within a mega-diverse group of organisms (e.g. arthropods), especially those inhabiting secluded environments such as cave...

Many ecological and evolutionary studies require to quantify the degree of adaptation of subterranean species to caves or other subterranean systems. In 1962, Kenneth A. Christiansen (1924-2017) coined the term "troglomorphism" to illustrate the process of subterranean adaptation and the suite of adaptive traits of organisms ("troglomorphic traits"...

Mass media plays an important role in the construction and circulation of risk perception associated with animals. Widely feared groups such as spiders frequently end up in the spotlight of traditional and social media. We compiled an expert-curated global database on the online newspaper coverage of human-spider encounters over the past ten years...

The great diversity of the invertebrate community thriving in the deepest sections of the gypsum karst system of the Monte Conca sinkhole (Sicily, Italy) suggests the existence of a complex food web associated with a sulfidic pool and chemoautotrophic microbial activity. To shed light on the peculiarity of this biological assemblage, we investigate...

In the Internet era, the digital architecture that keeps us connected and informed may collaterally amplify the spread of misinformation and falsehood1,2. The magnitude of this problem is gaining global relevance3, as evidence accumulates that misinformation interferes with democratic processes and undermines collective responses to environmental a...

Over the past decades, interest for the underground karst environments has grown remarkably, not only from the scientific viewpoint, but also from an economic perspective. The so-called “show caves” are caves open to the public for touristic purposes, managed by a governmental or commercial organization. The numbers of visitors (up to 500,000/year/...

Spiders are a highly diversified group of arthropods and play an important role in terrestrial ecosystems as ubiquitous predators, which makes them a suitable group to test a variety of eco-evolutionary hypotheses. For this purpose, knowledge of a diverse range of species traits is required. Until now, data on spider traits have been scattered acro...

The impacts of extreme and rising mean temperatures due to climate change can pose significant physiological challenges for insects. An integrated approach that focuses on mechanisms of body temperature regulation, water balance and morphology may help to unravel the functional traits underpinning thermoregulation strategies and the most relevant t...

When artificial lighting systems are installed in show caves, alien photosynthetic epilithic prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms —the so-called ‘lampenflora’— form extended biofilms on cave speleothems, causing structural and aesthetic damage. Among the environmental drivers influencing their proliferation, light intensity and duration of ill...

In the venom of spiders, linear peptides (LPs), also called cytolytical or antimicrobial peptides, represent a largely neglected group of mostly membrane active substances that contribute in some spider species considerably to the killing power of spider venom. By next-generation sequencing venom gland transcriptome analysis, we investigated 48 spi...

Aim Historically, research on global distribution patterns has mostly concentrated on conspicuous organisms and thus a large proportion of biodiversity on Earth remains unmapped. We examined the global distribution of palpigrades, a poorly studied group of low dispersive arachnids specialized to subterranean life. We asked what is their typical ran...

Despite their ecological importance and diversity, spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) are underrepresented in conservation policies in comparison to other groups. We review all extant conservation tools focusing on spiders in Europe, highlighting general patterns, limitations, gaps, and future directions. We assembled a comprehensive online database repo...

Human activities in subterranean environments can affect different ecosystem components, including the resident fauna. Subterranean terrestrial invertebrates are particularly sensitive to environmental change, especially microclimatic variations. For instance, microclimate modifications caused by the visitors may directly affect local fauna in cave...

We investigated the ecological requirements in the emergence phase of two congeneric species of Aeshnidae, Aeshna grandis (Linnaeus 1758) and A. juncea (Linnaeus 1758), occurring in syntopy at the southernmost limit of their range. We sampled the exuviae of the two species at the peak of their emergence in three lakes in NW Italy. In each lake we d...

Nota all'edizione italiana "Ragni del Mondo"

Spiders are able to arouse strong emotional reactions in humans. While spider bites are statistically rare events, our perception is skewed towards the potential harm spiders can cause to humans. Nevertheless, there is still limited understanding of the role of the media in spreading (mis)information about them thereby promoting this distorted perc...

A main goal of ecological and evolutionary biology is understanding and predicting interactions between populations and both abiotic and biotic environments, the spatial and temporal variation of these interactions, and the effects on population dynamics and performance. Trait-based approaches can help to model these interactions and generate a com...

1. Although caves are generally perceived as isolated habitats, at the local scale, they are often interconnected via a network of fissures in the bedrock. Accordingly, caves in close proximity are expected to host the same, or very similar, animal communities. 2. We explored the extent to which subterranean arthropod communities are homogenous at...

Urbanization is a complex process associated with environmental changes affecting many biotic and abiotic ecosystem components, which cause the alteration of biological communities, habitat features, connectivity and stability. In particular, the urbanization process is usually associated with a decrease in species richness that parallels a general...

Ecological specialization is an important mechanism enhancing species coexistence within a given community. Yet, unravelling the effect of multiple selective evolutionary and ecological factors leading the process of specialization remains a key challenge in ecology. Subterranean habitats provide highly replicated experimental arenas in which to di...

Spiders are able to arouse strong emotional reactions in humans. While spider bites are statistically rare events, our perception is skewed towards the potential harm spiders can cause to humans. We examined the human dimension of spiders through the lens of traditional media, by analysing more than 300 spider-related news published online in Itali...

The conversion of natural lands in urban areas is exponentially increasing worldwide, causing a major decline in biodiversity. Environmental alterations caused by urbanization, such as land conversion and isolation of natural patches, favour tolerant and generalist species, causing both species loss and replacement. In addition, selective pressure...

The spider genus Histopona Thorell, 1869 (Araneae: Agelenidae) includes several species that exhibit a preference for subterranean conditions, being occasionally or exclusively found in caves, crevices and similar habitats. Within the genus, the species displaying the highest level of subterranean adaptation is possibly H. palaeolithica (Brignoli,...

In this contribution we present the Catalog of Italian spiders, produced on the base of the available scientific information regarding spider species distribution in Italy. We analysed an amount of 1124 references, resulting in a list of 1670 species and subspecies, grouped in 434 genera and 53 families. Information on spider biodiversity in Italy...

Macroecologists seek to identify drivers of community turnover (β-diversity) through broad spatial scales. However, the influence of local habitat features in driving broad-scale β-diversity patterns remains largely untested, owing to the objective challenges of associating local-scale variables to continental-framed datasets. We examined the relat...

Background Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) are widespread in subterranean ecosystems worldwide and represent an important component of subterranean trophic webs. Yet, global-scale diversity patterns of subterranean spiders are still mostly unknown. In the frame of the CAWEB project, a European joint network of cave arachnologists, we collected data on...

Janzen’s hypothesis (1967; American Naturalist ) predicts that tropical habitats with reduced thermal seasonality would select for species with narrow thermal tolerance, thereby limiting dispersal among sites of different elevations showing little overlap in temperature. These predictions have so far been tested by confronting tropical and temperat...

Aim In theory, the highest‐quality habitat across a species’ range should support individuals with the highest fitness, making it possible to evaluate the outputs of species distribution models (SDMs) by exploring the relationship between habitat quality and functional traits related to species’ fitness. However, this relationship has been tested a...

In light of recent alarming trends in human population growth, climate change, and other environmental modifications, a "Warning to humanity" manifesto was published in BioScience in 2017. This call reiterated most of the ideas originally expressed by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 1992, including the fear that we are "pushing Earth's ecosyst...

Biogeographic studies often underline the role of glacial dynamism during Pleistocene (1.806–0.011 Mya) in shaping the distribution of subterranean species. Accordingly, it is presumed that present-day distribution of most specialized cold-adapted (cryophilic) cave-dwelling species should bear the signatures of past climatic events. To test this id...

Scientists of different disciplines have recognized the valuable role of terrestrial caves as ideal natural laboratories in which to study multiple eco-evolutionary processes, from genes to ecosystems. Because caves and other subterranean habitats are semi-closed systems characterized by a remarkable thermal stability, they should also represent in...

We present an inventory of the spider species of the municipality of Barcelonnette (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France), based on the material collected during the “Explor’Nature Barcelonnette” event, organised by the Mercantour National Park, from 30th June to 2nd July 2017. We report a total of 120 species, representing 83 genera and 25 families. Fo...

The type-genus of the mygalomorph spider family Ctenizidae (Cteniza) is newly diagnosed and described. The type-species of Cteniza (C. sauvagesi) is reestablished by describing and designating a neotype collected at the type locality of the species, in Corsica. Alongside the female neotype, the male of C. sauvagesi is redescribed, as well as both s...

Despite subterranean communities being relatively simple, their precise characterization still represents an interesting ecological challenge. This is mostly because, due to the inaccessibility of most subterranean habitats, the spatial boundaries and the species composition of the communities are difficult to define. In this chapter, we describe t...