Mattia Greco

Institut de Ciències del Mar

Isotopic and trace-element signals in the calcite shells of the planktonic foraminifera Neogloboquadrina pachyderma represent key proxies to reconstruct past climatic conditions in northern high latitudes. A correct interpretation of these chemical signals requires knowledge of the habitat and trophic interactions of the species. Direct observation...

The Fram Strait plays a crucial role in regulating the heat and sea-ice dynamics in the Arctic. In response to the ongoing global warming, the marine biota of this Arctic gateway is experiencing significant changes with increasing advection of Atlantic species. The footprint of this “Atlantification” has been identified in isolated observations acr...

Environmental (e)DNA metabarcoding holds great promise for biomonitoring and ecotoxicological applications. However, few studies have compared the performance of eDNA versus eRNA metabarcoding in assessing organismal response to marine pollution, in experimental conditions. Here, we performed a chromium (Cr)-spiked mesocosm experimental test on ben...

The biotic crisis following the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact resulted in a dramatic renewal of pelagic biodiversity. Considering the severe and immediate effect of the asteroid impact on the pelagic environment, it is remarkable that some of the most affected pelagic groups, like the planktonic foraminifera, survived at all. Here we queried a sur...

Ribosomal intragenomic variability in prokaryotes and eukaryotes is a genomic feature commonly studied for its inflationary impact on molecular diversity assessments. However, the evolutionary mechanisms and distribution of this phenomenon within a microbial group are rarely explored. Here, we investigate the intragenomic variability in 33 species...

Nematodes are the most diverse and dominant group of marine meiofauna with high potential as bioindicators of the ecological quality status (EcoQS). The present study explores, for the first time, the applicability of the nematode metabarcoding to infer EcoQS index based on the calibration of ecological behaviors of nematodes Amplicon Sequence Vari...

Planktonic Foraminifera have been collected from the water column with different plankton sampling devices equipped with nets of various mesh sizes, which impedes direct comparison of observed quantifications. Here, we use data on the community size structure of planktonic Foraminifera to assess the impact of mesh size on the measured abundance (in...

Planktonic Foraminifera have been collected from the water column with different plankton sampling devices equipped with nets of various mesh sizes, which impedes direct comparison of observed quantifications. Here, we use data on the community size structure of planktonic Foraminifera to assess the impact of mesh size on the measured abundance (in...

This study investigates the ecotoxicological effects of BDE-209, a persistent organic pollutant (POP) prevalent in Kuwait's coastal-industrial areas, on benthic foraminiferal communities. We conducted a mesocosm experiment in which we exposed benthic foraminiferal communities sampled from the coastal-industrial areas of Kuwait to a gradient of BDE-...

Environmental DNA metabarcoding reveals a vast genetic diversity of marine eukaryotes. Yet, most of the metabarcoding data remain unassigned due to the paucity of reference databases. This is particularly true for the deep-sea meiofauna and eukaryotic microbiota, whose hidden diversity is largely unexplored. Here, we tackle this issue by using uniq...

The nature and extent of diversity in the plankton has fascinated scientists for over a century. Initially, the discovery of many new species in the remarkably uniform and unstructured pelagic environment appeared to challenge the concept of ecological niches. Later, it became obvious that only a fraction of plankton diversity had been formally des...

The poster presents outcomes from the action of the EU funded projects ECOTIP-EU4OceanObs: Biogenic Data Products to Advance Ocean Carbon Sequestration Modelling in the Arctic. More details can be found here: https://www.eu4oceanobs.eu/biogenic-data-products-to-advance-ocean-carbon-sequestration-modelling-in-the-arctic/ https://www.eu4oceanobs....

We conducted a morphometric study and wall texture analysis on extant and fossil specimens of the plank-tonic foraminifera Globigerina falconensis plexus. Our global data reveal morphological inconsistencies between fossil and extant populations. Our results are significant as G. falconensis is widely used in palaeoceanographic studies in conjuncti...

The enormous population sizes and wide biogeographical distribution of many microbial eukaryotes set the expectation of high levels of intraspecific genetic variation. However, studies investigating protist populations remain scarce, mostly due to limited 'omics data. Instead, most genetics studies of microeukaryotes have thus far relied on single...

The trophic strategies of cold-water planktonic foraminifera are not well understood due to the challenge of culturing them in polar conditions. Here, we identify previously unknown ectoplasmic and cytoplasmic projections in three species of planktonic foraminifera thriving in polar and subpolar marine environments: Globigerina bulloides, Neogloboq...

Sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) offers a novel retrospective approach to reconstructing the history of marine ecosystems over geological timescales. Until now, the biological proxies used to reconstruct paleoceanographic and paleoecological conditions were limited to organisms whose remains are preserved in the fossil record. The development of a...

Planktonic Foraminifera are unique paleo-environmental indicators through their excellent fossil record in ocean sediments. Their distribution and diversity are affected by different environmental factors including anthropogenically forced ocean and climate change. Until now, historical changes in their distribution have not been fully assessed at...

Globigerina falconensis and Globigerina bulloides are two widely used taxa in palaeoceanographic and paleoclimatic studies. Morphologically these two species are similar, with the main difference being the distinctive apertural lip in G. falconensis. Globigerina falconensis was originally described from Miocene sediments in Venezuela and it still r...

Knowledge of eukaryotic life cycles and associated genome dynamics stems largely from research on animals, plants, and a small number of “model” (i.e., easily cultivable) lineages. This skewed sampling results in an underappreciation of the variability among the many microeukaryotic lineages, which represent the bulk of eukaryotic biodiversity. The...

Foraminifera, classified in the supergroup Rhizaria, are a common and highly diverse group of mainly marine protists. Despite their evolutionary and ecological importance, only limited genomic data (one partial genome and nine transcriptomic datasets) have been published for this group. Foraminiferal molecular phylogeny is largely based on 18S rRNA...

Planktonic Foraminifera are ubiquitous marine protozoa inhabiting the upper ocean. During life, they secrete calcareous shells, which accumulate in marine sediments, providing a geological record of past spatial and temporal changes in their community structure. As a result, they provide the opportunity to analyze both current and historical patter...

Foraminifera include diverse shell‐building lineages found in a wide array of aquatic habitats from the deep‐sea to intertidal zones to brackish and freshwater ecosystems. Recent estimates of morphological and molecular foraminifera diversity have increased the knowledge of foraminiferal diversity, which is critical as these lineages are used as bi...

The Fram Strait plays a crucial role in regulating the heat and sea-ice dynamics in the Arctic. In response to the ongoing global warming, the marine biota of this Arctic gateway is experiencing significant changes with increasing advection of Atlantic species. The footprint of this 'Atlantification' has been identified in isolated observations acr...

Isotopic and trace-element signals in the calcite shells of the planktonic foraminifera Neogloboquadrina pachyderma represent key proxies to reconstruct past climatic conditions in northern high latitudes. A correct interpretation of these chemical signals requires knowledge of the habitat and trophic interactions of the species. Direct observation...

Chemical signatures in the calcite of shells of polar and subpolar planktonic foraminifera have been frequently used to trace and quantify past meltwater discharge events. This approach assumes that the foraminifera can tolerate low salinity under extended periods. To obtain a first experimental constraint on salinity tolerance of Subarctic foramin...

The planktonic foraminifera genus Globigerinoides provides a prime example of a species-rich genus in which genetic and morphological divergence are uncorrelated. To shed light on the evolutionary processes that lead to the present-day diversity of Globigerinoides, we investigated the genetic, ecological and morphological divergence of its constitu...

Neogloboquadrina pachyderma is the dominant planktonic foraminifera species in the polar regions. In the northern high-latitude ocean, it makes up more than 90 % of the total assemblages, making it the dominant pelagic calcifier and carrier of paleoceanographic proxies. To assess the reaction of this species to a future shaped by climate change and...

Most research on extant planktonic foraminifera has been directed towards larger species (>0.150 mm) which can be easily manipulated, counted and yield enough calcite for geochemical analyses. This has drawn attention towards the macroperforate clade and created an impression of their numerical and ecological dominance. Drawing such conclusions fro...

Metadata and taxonomy of the Sanger sequences used in the study. (XLSX)

Scheme of the ribosomal DNA with its variable (gray) and conserved (white) regions. The fragment mostly analyzed in planktonic foraminifera, located at the 3′ end of the SSU up to the ITS regions, is shown in more detail (variable regions as lines and conserved regions as boxes) and includes the position of the fragment amplified in the present stu...

Neogloboquadrina pachyderma is the dominant species in the polar regions. In the northern high latitude ocean, it makes up more than 90% of the total planktonic foraminifera assemblages, making it the dominant pelagic calcifier and carrier of paleoceanographic proxies. To assess the reaction of this species to future climate change and to be able t...

“Once Upon a Time… a Scientific Fairy Tale” is an award-winning project that aims to communicate science and promote the dialogue between scientists and the public. At the heart of this project, there is a set of short stories (tales) with scientific content in a clear language, illustrated by professional and amateur artists. The stories cover dif...

Mercury (Hg) is a highly toxic element for living organisms and is known to bioaccumulate and biomagnify. Here, we analyze the response of benthic foraminifera communities cultured in mesocosm and exposed to different concentrations of Hg. Standard morphological analyses and environmental DNA metabarcoding show evidence that Hg pollution has detrim...

Benthic foraminifera and ostracods, and resting stages (cysts) of plankton were analysed from surface sediment samples collected at 20 stations in the Mar Piccolo of Taranto (Ionian Sea, Mediterranean), with the aim to advance our knowledge on the biodiversity and ecological features of confined marine areas and to upgrade the autoecology of the sp...