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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (209)
Sea ice is a key habitat in the high latitude Southern Ocean and is predicted to change in its extent, thickness and duration in coming decades. The sea-ice cover is instrumental in mediating ocean–atmosphere exchanges and provides an important substrate for organisms from microbes and algae to predators. Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, is reli...
The Antarctic endemic fish genus Trematomus (Trematominae, Notothenioidei) includes 15 species very diverse in morphology, lifestyle and feeding ecology. Co-occurring on the continental shelf, they occupy different habitats and a wide range of ecological niches as the result of adaptive radiation during their evolutionary history. Ecomorphological...
The olfactory system is constituted in a consistent way across vertebrates. Nasal structures allow water/air to enter an olfactory cavity, conveying the odorants to a sensory surface. There, the olfactory neurons form, with their axons, a sensory nerve projecting to the telencephalic zone—named the olfactory bulb. This organization comes with many...
The Antarctic silverfish Pleuragramma antarctica is a key species in the Southern Ocean ecosystem, and it is potentially threatened by the climate change affecting Antarctic ecosystems. Assessing the possible exposure to similar or different environmental conditions at early life stages and gathering information about connectivity or segregation be...
The polar cod (Boreogadus saida ) and the Antarctic silverfish ( Pleuragramma antarctica ) are pelagic fish endemic to the Arctic and Antarctica sea, respectively. Both species are abundant and play a central role as midtrophic wasp-waist species in polar ecosystems. Due to their biological and ecological characteristics (small size, complex life h...
Southern Ocean ecosystems are globally important and vulnerable to global drivers of change, yet they remain challenging to study. Fish and squid make up a significant portion of the biomass within the Southern Ocean, filling key roles in food webs from forage to mid-trophic species and top predators. They comprise a diverse array of species unique...
In situ observation of Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) is challenging as they typically live at depths greater than 500 m, in dark and ice-covered Antarctic waters. Searching for adequate methodologies to survey Antarctic toothfish in their habitat, we tested a miniaturized Baited Remote Underwater Video camera (BRUV), deployed through h...
Important findings from the second decade of the 21st century on the impact of environmental change on biological processes in the Antarctic were synthesised by 26 international experts. Ten key messages emerged that have stakeholder-relevance and/or a high impact for the scientific community. They address (i) altered biogeochemical cycles, (ii) oc...
Important findings from the second decade of the 21st century on the impact of environmental change on biological processes in the Antarctic were synthesised by 26 international experts. Ten key messages emerged that have stakeholder-relevance and/or a high impact for the scientific community. They address (i) altered biogeochemical cycles, (ii) oc...
p>Important findings from the second decade of the 21st century on the impact of environmental change on biological processes in the Antarctic were synthesised by 26 international experts. Ten key messages emerged that have stakeholder-relevance and/or a high impact for the scientific community. They address (i) altered biogeochemical cycles, (ii)...
Mercury is a bioaccumulating toxic pollutant which can reach humans through the consumption of contaminated food (e.g. marine fish). Although the Southern Ocean is often portrayed as a pristine ecosystem, its fishery products are not immune to mercury contamination. We analysed mercury concentration (organic and inorganic forms – T-Hg) in the muscl...
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 (...
In vertebrates, the olfactory bulb (OB) is the zone of the brain devoted to receiving the olfactory stimuli. The size of the OB relative to the size of the brain has been positively correlated to a good olfactory capability but, recently, this correlation was questioned after new investigation techniques were developed. Among them, the isotropic fr...
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...
This paper describes the cytogenetic features of the Antarctic silverfish Pleuragramma antarctica (Boulenger 1902), a keystone species of the Antarctic coastal marine ecosystem. Conventional cytogenetic analyses and physical mapping of repetitive DNA sequences were performed on metaphase plates obtained through direct chromosome preparation from P....
The Antarctic silverfish Pleuragramma antarctica is a plankton feeder playing an important role at midtrophic level in High Antarctic ecosystems. Over years, a reasonable bulk of information has been collected on the trophic ecology of the species, nevertheless there are several aspects that still deserve full elucidation. Here, we explore the trop...
A survey of Antarctic toothfish ( Dissostichus mawsoni ) was conducted in the northern Ross Sea region during the winter of 2016 to document the timing and location of spawning activity, to collect biological information about reproductive status during the spawning season and to look for temporal signals in biological data from D. mawsoni that may...
The Antarctic notothenioid fish Dissostichus mawsoni (Antarctic toothfish) is an important piscine top predator in the Southern Ocean. Good olfactory capability has been hypothesized for this species on the basis of morphological (size of its olfactory bulb compared to other notothenioids) and behavioral (long distance migrations for food search an...
The olfactory organ of Chondrichthyes is characterized by a central support with several lamellae covered by a sensory olfactory epithelium. Although secondary folds are present on the lamellae in all the chondrichthyan species analyzed to date, their shape and size have not been described. We here analyze the olfactory organ of 13 elasmobranch and...
The olfactory organ of Chondrichthyes is characterized by a central raphe and several lamellae covered by the sensory olfactory epithelium; usually the lamellae have secondary folds on their surface. It is an overall complex shape and very variable among the species of this vertebrate class. The sensory olfactory epithelium, in turns, has a general...
Antarctic silverfish ( Pleuragramma antarctica Boulenger) are a keystone species in the Ross Sea. Silverfish eggs and larvae are abundant during spring amongst the sub-surface platelet ice in Terra Nova Bay. It is not known whether the eggs are spawned elsewhere and accumulate under the ice or whether there is mass migration of silverfish to coasta...
Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) is a large nototheniid endemic in Antarctic waters. They are a top predator, and an important commercially fished species with a circumpolar distribution mostly south of the Antarctic convergence. Fisheries acoustics is a potential tool to estimate toothfish abundance and distribution, but previous studies...
During their evolution and speciation in the Antarctic waters, notothenioid fish occupied a variety of habitats and ecological niches. The diversification led to important variations in several morphological features related to particular aspects of their ecologies. We investigated the feeding structures and biomechanics of three phylogenetically r...
The Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni Norman 1937) is the largest notothenioid inhabiting high-latitude Antarctic waters, where it is an important fishery resource and plays a key ecological role at a high trophic level. Despite the considerable amount of data on D. mawsoni biology and distribution developed since the fishery began in 1997,...
A new specimen of splendid alfonsino, Beryx splendens Lowe, 1834, was caught by trawling in July 2016 in the Ligurian Sea at the depth of 350 m, in the proximity of a submarine canyon. It represents the 10th documented record of B. splendens in the Mediterranean. Because of the rarity of the records in the basin, there could be doubts whether to co...
Biotic interactions are particularly relevant in stable environments, such as the High Antarctic areas. Among them, predation has a key role in structuring community and population variables, including size-frequency distribution. This study aims to quantify the impact of predation by the notothenioid fish Trematomus bernacchii on the Antarctic sca...
Several papers regard the anatomy of the peripheral olfactory organ, the olfactory rosette, in the class of Chondrichtyes. The complex shape of this organ and the differences among species give clues to functional, evolutionary, and ecological observations; data on a larger number of species are needed in order to have a more complete insight. The...
The ecological features of the Ross Sea trophic web are peculiar and different from other polar food webs, with respect to the use of habitat and species interactions; due to its ecosystem integrity, it is the world's largest Marine Protected Area, established in 2016. Polar organisms are reported to bioaccumulate lipophilic contaminant, viz persis...
Reproduction is a key step of a species life history and includes a suite of strategies and tactics enacted to allow the maximization of reproductively active offspring in relation to available energy and parental life expectancy. Gender system, oogenesis pattern, maturation schedule, shifts in habitat utilization, spawning seasonality, mating beha...
One of the main conservation objectives for marine systems is to identify areas of ecological importance for biodiversity and essential species habitats which can be used as scientific reference areas for monitoring global change in the absence of major human impacts. The Antarctic silverfish, Pleuragramma antarctica is a keystone pelagic species,...
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 report includes and examines the list of taxonomists from IAMC (Institute for Coastal Marine Environment), IGG (Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources), ISE (Institute of Ecosystem Study), and ISMAR (Institute of Marine Sciences), who responded to the Taxonomy Census 2016, their scientific publications and the number of taxa described new...
Gross morphology and histology of the olfactory rosette of Greenland shark Somniosus microcephalus (Bloch & Schneider, 1801), suggest a well-developed olfactory capability for this top predator and scavenger native to Arctic waters. In the present paper, observations on the olfactory rosette are reported together with the gross morphology and histo...
Sharks belonging to the family Hexanchidae have six or seven gill slits, unlike all other elasmobranchs, which have five gill slits. Their olfactory organs have a round shape, which is common for holocephalans, but not for elasmobranchs. Thus, the shape of the olfactory organ represents a further, less striking, peculiarity of this family among ela...
The Antarctic silverfish Pleuragramma antarctica is the most abundant pelagic fish inhabiting the Ross Sea. Given its ecological relevance in the local food web, it is considered a keystone species in the Antarctic coastal ecosystems. Many aspects of its biology have been elucidated, but knowledge of important parts of its life cycle, including rep...
Background
Over the past 40 million years water temperatures have dramatically dropped in the Southern Ocean, which has led to the local extinction of most nearshore fish lineages. The evolution of antifreeze glycoproteins in notothenioids, however, enabled these ancestrally benthic fishes to survive and adapt as temperatures reached the freezing p...
The Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is the largest predatory fish in Arctic waters. Knowledge of the fundamental biology and ecological role of the Greenland shark is limited, and the sensory biology of the Greenland shark has been poorly studied. Given the potential relevant contribution of chemoreception to the sensory capability of the...
The Antarctic silverfish Pleuragramma antarctica (Notothenioidei, Nototheniidae) is the most abundant pelagic fish inhabiting the frigid Antarctic coastal waters. It plays relevant roles in the local ecosystems, where it is often considered a keystone species connecting lower and upper trophic levels within the coastal marine food web. Despite its...
The Greenland shark Somniosus microcephalus (Bloch and Schneider, 1801) is the largest predatory fish in Arctic waters. The socio-economic significance of Greenland shark is demonstrated by its impact on the fishing cultures in Greenland, Scandinavia and Iceland for centuries. The fundamental biology and ecological role of Greenland shark, on the o...
According to the most recent census, the modern fauna of the Southern Ocean (SO) includes 374 fish species. Among them, a single group of closely related species, the suborder Notothenioidei, dominates, in terms of diversity, biomass and abundance, accounting for 115 or 30.75% of all SO species. The diversification and dominance of notothenioids in...
Chimaeroid fishes are the only extant Holocephali, a subclass of Chondrichthyes. We describe for the first time a well evidenced structure localized in the palate of the chimaeroid Chimaera monstrosa, here named a palatal organ. Attention has been paid to the holocephalan head morphology, but there has been no mention of this particular organ in th...
Several recent papers have criticized the scientific robustness of the fisheries management system used by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), including that for Ross Sea toothfish. Here we present a response from the wider CCAMLR community to address concerns and to correct some apparent misconception...
The occurrence of the doctorfish Acanthurus chirurgus is reported for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea, off Elba Island, Tyrrhenian Sea (42.726667° N, 10.434444° E). This record is tentatively related to aquarium release. The occurrence of Acanthuridae in the Mediterranean Sea is briefly reviewed, and some distributional notes on Acanthurus...
Cytogenetics provides a unique platform to study in situ structural, functional, and evolutionary
aspects of the genome. As such it holds powerful promise in decoding mechanisms and processes of
genome architectural changes and their role in organism’s diversification and evolution. Since the early 80s,
such an approach has been applied to the stud...
The Antarctic silverfish, Pleuragramma antarctica, is ecologically important for connecting lower and upper trophic levels within the coastal marine Antarctic food web. In recent decades, populations of silverfish have exhibited a declining trend in some regions of the Antarctic, in particular the western Antarctic Peninsula. It is of paramount imp...
It is presented the analyses on the MEDLEM (Mediterranean Large Elasmobranchs Monitoring) database that, up to now, contains more than 2000 records and over 2700 individuals of large elasmobranchs in the Mediterranean coming from 20 different countries. The main species represented in the archive are devil rays (736 individuals), basking sharks (ab...
The yellowmouth barracuda Sphyraena viridensis is a termophilic fish species, now very common in the Ligurian Sea. In the available literature, information on this species is very scanty. In particular the early stages of the life cycle (e.g. settlement) are virtually unknown. An analysis of this crucial phase can be very important to understand th...
The Mediterranean Large Elasmobranchs Monitoring (MEDLEM) database contains more than 2000 records (n>3000 individuals) of large elasmobranchs species from 20 different countries around the Mediterranean Sea caught or observed from 1666 to 2014. The main species represented in the archive are devil rays (736 individuals), basking sharks (682 indivi...
Visual observations and videos of Chionodraco hamatus icefish at the "Acquario di Genova" and histological analyses of congeneric species C. hamatus and C. rastrospinosus adults sampled in the field provided new anatomical and behavioral information on the reproductive biology of these white blooded species that are endemic to the High-Antarctic re...
The "Biogeographic Atlas of the Southern Ocean" is a legacy of the International Polar Year 2007-2009 (www.ipy.org) and of the Census of Marine Life 2000-2010 (www.coml.org), contributed by the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (www.caml.aq) and the SCAR Marine Biodiversity Information Network (www.scarmarbin.be; www.biodiversity.aq). The "Biogeograp...
The Antarctic silverfish Pleuragramma antarcticum is a keystone species in the Ross Sea ecosystem, providing one of the major links between lower and higher trophic levels. Despite the importance of this species, surprisingly little is known of its early development and behaviour. Here, we determine the metabolic capacity of Pleuragramma embryonate...
Pleuragramma antarcticum is the dominant pelagic fish in the waters of the continental shelf in high
Antarctic regions, where it plays a key role in the food web. A nursery ground for eggs of this species was first identified in 2002 in Terra Nova Bay (Ross Sea), where eggs were found trapped in ice platelets under the sea-ice during the spring. As...
The mucosa covering the tongue of the Chimaera monstrosa has been investigated with histological and immunohistochemical methods allowing to describe, for the first time, gustatory structures (taste buds) in this subclass of cartilaginous fish. G-protein-alpha-subunit-inhibitory-like (Gαi-like) immunoreactivity has been detected in the taste buds o...
In this paper we update the Mediterranean fish inventory, analyse the biogeographic features of this fauna and provide exhaustive biodiversity data for the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas. According to the data available in 2010, the Mediterranean fish diversity can be summarized as follows: 602 (including sub-species) bony fish species (Osteichthyes)...
Nitric oxide is a regulative molecule with important roles in the olfactory system of vertebrates. Chondrichtyans have a key position in vertebrate evolution and nothing is known about nitric oxide in their olfactory system. Aim of this work was to investigate the neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) immunoreactivity in the olfactory system of the...
The fifth and sixth documented occurrences of the splendid alfonsino Beryx splendens from the Mediterranean Sea are reported. One female and one male adult specimen were captured off the Cilento coast, Tyrrhenian Sea in July 2007 and July 2010, respectively. Analyses of mitochondrial DNA (control region) confirmed the morphological identification a...
This paper investigates the abundance and distribution of Pleuragramma antarcticum larvae by size class in the Dumont d'Urville Sea from 2004 to 2010. Samples were collected between Dumont d'Urville station and the Mertz Glacier Tongue onboard the RV l'Astrolabe for studying the inter-annual and spatial distribution of fish larvae and the TRV Umita...
During January and February 2004, data on presence and distribution of killer whales (Orcinus orca) and other cetaceans were collected by helicopter surveys along the coastline of Terra Nova Bay and adjacent localities (western Ross Sea, Antarctica). A total of 37 sightings of killer whale, of both B and C types, were recorded as well as 17 sightin...
The blue runner Caranx crysos is a thermophilic species poorly investigated in the Mediterranean Sea. Although considered a typical inhabitant of the southern regions, it has recently established in northwest Sicily and, according to the data presented in this study, is now regularly caught in the central-southern Tyrrhenian Sea up to the Gulf of N...
The sea ice, extending seasonally over a vast area of the circumpolar Oceans, plays major roles in earth global systems and marine life. Pleuragramma antarcticum (Antarctic silverfish), a key fish in Antarctic coastal ecosystem, uses seasonal sea ice as nursery ground.
Antarctic plunderfishes (Notothenioidei, Artedidraconidae) are important components of the Southern Ocean fish fauna. As a contribution to the Victoria Land Transect (VLT) Project, we performed a cytogenetic analysis of six species from three of the four artedidraconid genera, Artedidraco glareobarbatus, A. orianae, A. skottsbergi, A. shackletoni,...
