BIANCHI , Carlo Nike

Global climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of extreme heat anomalies and consequent mass coral bleaching events. Long-term dynamics of hard coral cover, bioconstruction potential, carbonate deposition, and reef accretion was monitored over a 20-year period on Maldivian coral reefs in order to investigate the effects of...

Sea-level changes have shaped the world's carbonate platform margins and continental shelves, leaving typical geomorphic imprints, such as drowned reef terraces. In this paper, we present the results of 112 scuba diving transects across seven different Maldivian atolls and one multibeam survey around Malé Island, the capital of Maldives. We...

The availability of marine habitats maps remains limited due to difficulty and cost of working at sea. Reduced light penetration in the water hampers the use of optical imagery, and acoustic methods require extensive sea-truth activities. Predictive spatial modelling may offer an alternative to produce benthic habitat maps based on complete...

Marine caves are unique and vulnerable habitats exhibiting high biodiversity and heterogeneity, but threatened by multiple global and local disturbances. Marine caves, although widely distributed along the Mediterranean coast, suffer for the lack of quantitative data on their structure and function, which hinder their conservation status...

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. The study evaluated: i) the effectiveness of the two indices at a regional spatial scale...

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are a major tool to conserve marine ecosystems but are also strongly attractive to tourists, the increased numbers of which can cause environmental issues if not properly managed. Proposing an MPA and then failing to establish it risks advertising the beauty of a marine area without managing the unavoidable...

The effects of global change are particularly serious in areas where range shiftsof species are physically constrained such as the Ligurian Sea, which is one ofthe coldest sectors of the Mediterranean. In this basin, historical informationon water temperature (from the sea surface down to 75 m depth) dates backto the 1950s. Early studies also...

Within the framework of the EU Life+ project named LIFE09 NAT/IT/000190 ARION, a permanent automated real-Time passive acoustic monitoring system for the improvement of the conservation status of the transient and resident population of bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) has been implemented and installed in the Portofino Marine Protected...

Dark marine habitats are often characterized by a food-limited condition. Peculiar dark habitats include marine caves, characterized by the absence of light and limited water flow, which lead to reduced fluxes of organic matter for cave-dwelling organisms. We investigated whether the most abundant and common cave-dwelling fish Apogon imberbis...

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Marine bioconstructions are biodiversity-rich, three-dimensional biogenic structures, regulating key ecological functions of benthic ecosystems worldwide. Tropical coral reefs are outstanding for their beauty, diversity and complexity, but analogous types of bioconstructions are also present in temperate seas. The main bioconstructions in the...

A conceptual model was constructed for the functioning the algae-dominated rocky reef ecosystem of the Med-iterranean Sea. The Ecosystem-Based Quality Index (reef-EBQI) is based upon this model. This index meets the objectives of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. It is based upon (i) the weighting of each compartment , according to...

Coralligenous outcrops are a Mediterranean sciaphilic habitat whose three-dimensionally layered communities develop on a basal biogenic concretion of calcareous red algae, along with a rich assemblage of sciaphilic sessile animals. The complexity of the evaluation of the ecological status of coralligenous is on a par with the complexity of this...