OPRANDI A.

The Serpulidae are a large family of sedentary polychaetes, characterized by a calcareous habitation tube, which they cannot leave. The calcium carbonate tube is in the form of both aragonite and calcite, in fairly constant ratio for each taxon. Tubes are cemented firmly to any hard substrate (in only few species tubes are free). Although in...

Seawater warming is affecting corals worldwide. Mass mortality events are increasingly frequent, and the bioconstruction potential of coral reefs is jeopardized. Revisiting sites surveyed in the past may represent a valuable tool to better understand the health state and ongoing trend of coral reefs. In the Mediterranean Sea the only...

The epiphytes of seagrass leaves constitute a peculiar community, comprised of a number of species specialized for this living substrate. Several studies report on the response of epiphytes to different pressures but no in-formation exists about the effects of summer heatwaves, which have become frequent events in the last decades. This paper...

No description

The skeleton of most Porifera species consists of siliceous spicules that, after the sponge death, persist for a long time in the sediment. The reduced suspension occurring within the meadows of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica makes these habitats a stable deposit for sponge spicules. Spicules trapped into the network of rhizomes progressively...

Biodiversity is a portmanteau word to indicate the variety of life at all levels from genes to ecosystems, but it is often simplistically equated to species richness; the word ecodiversity has thus been coined to address habitat variety. Biodiversity represents the core of the natural capital, and as such needs to be quantified and followed...

Climate change is affecting rocky reef ecosystems in a multitude of ways at global scale. During summer 2018, the rocky reef communities of Portofino Marine Protected Area (MPA) (NW Mediterranean) were affected by thermal anomalies, a mucilaginous event, and the seasonal expansion of Caulerpa cylindracea. Moreover, a severe storm occurred on 29...

Shallow hydrothermal vents emit warm water, carbon dioxide, toxic chemicals, nutrients and reduced compounds that altogether mimic climate and human impacts, and are therefore considered as 'natural laboratories' at which can be investigated the effects of these stressors on marine ecosystems. One of the effects more thoroughly investigated is...

Coastal urbanization and the consequent proliferation of artificial structures greatly impact rocky reef communities, productive and diverse marine environments that play a crucial role in the functioning of broader coastal ecosystems. This study, conducted along a 7 km stretch of coastline at increasing distance from the port of Genoa...

Biotic indices are major tools recommended by the European Directives for assessing the ecological status of marine coastal ecosystems such as Posidonia oceanica meadows. Nevertheless, the multitude of available metrics commonly adopted in the P. oceanica monitoring often provide diverging responses about the health status of the habitat. In...

The Ligurian Sea (NW Mediterranean) has been a focal point for numerous interventions aimed at restoring Posidonia oceanica meadows. The success of pioneer restoration actions in France during the 1970s stimulated similar initiatives across the Mediterranean Sea. Early attempts in the Ligurian Sea were implemented in 1993 and 1996 on limited...

1. Detailed knowledge about the distribution of species in need of protection is required for the management of Marine Protected Areas, a major tool to reduce marine biodiversity loss. Such knowledge is deficient for most marine invertebrates. 2. Axinella polypoides is a marine sponge included on the list of protected species by the Barcelona...

Extreme environmental events can strongly affect coastal marine ecosystems but are typically unpredictable. Reliable data on benthic community conditions before such events are rarely available, making it difficult to measure their effects. At the end of October 2018, a severe storm hit the Ligurian coast (NW Mediterranean) producing damages to...

Marine ecosystems are subject to global and local impacts, both contributing to dramatic changes in coastal communities. Assessing such changes requires time series or the revisitation of sites first surveyed in the past. In both cases, data are not necessarily collected by the same observers, which could lead to a bias in the results. In the...

In the Mediterranean Sea, the bivalve genus Pinna is represented by two species: the endemic Pinna nobilis and the (sub)tropical Atlantic Pinna rudis. P. rudis is generally less common and mostly restricted to the warmer regions of the western Mediterranean. However, since a mass mortality event, caused by a pathogen infection, has brought P....

Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile is an endemic Mediterranean seagrass and a key species of coastal marine ecosystems listed among the priority habitats in the European Directive 92/43 / EEC. P. oceanica is a good biological indicator to define the quality of coastal marine ecosystem, because its high sensitivity to environmental conditions...

Posidonia oceanica is an endemic Mediterranean seagrass used as a 'biological quality element' in monitoring programmes of the EU Water Framework Directive, providing information about coastal ecosystems status. The regression of P. oceanica meadows caused a growing interest among policy makers to assess the value of seagrasses and to increase...

In the last decades, climate change and human pressures have increasingly and dramatically impacted the ocean worldwide, calling for urgent actions to safeguard coastal marine ecosystems. The European Commission, in particular, has set ambitious targets for member states with two major directives, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the...

Marine and coastal ecosystems are among the most productive environments in the world and contribute to the economic value generated by the biosphere offering a wide variety of services. Posidonia oceanica and some organisms of coralligenous biocenosis are key species listed among the priority habitats in the European Habitat Directive...