Search results for " mediterranean sea"
showing 10 items of 245 documents
Predicting shifting sustainability trade-offs in marine finfish aquaculture under climate change
2018
Defining sustainability goals is a crucial but difficult task because it often involves the quantification of multiple interrelated and sometimes conflicting components. This complexity may be exacerbated by climate change, which will increase environmental vulnerability in aquaculture and potentially compromise the ability to meet the needs of a growing human population. Here, we developed an approach to inform sustainable aquaculture by quantifying spatio-temporal shifts in critical trade-offs between environmental costs and benefits using the time to reach the commercial size as a possible proxy of economic implications of aquaculture under climate change. Our results indicate that optim…
New insights into the gut microbiome in loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta stranded on the Mediterranean coast
2019
Caretta caretta is the most common sea turtle species in the Mediterranean Sea. The species is threatened by anthropomorphic activity that causes thousands of deaths and hundreds of strandings along the Mediterranean coast. Stranded turtles are often cared for in rehabilitation centres until they recover or die. The objective of this study was to characterize the gut microbiome of nine sea turtles stranded along the Sicilian coast of the Mediterranean Sea using high-throughput sequencing analysis targeting V3–V4 regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. Stool samples were collected from eight specimens hosted in the recovery centre after a few days of hospitalization (under 7) and from one ho…
Marine caves of the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea: a First Census of Benthic Biodiversity
2017
This is the first paper documenting research on a selection of marine caves located along the coast of Capo Milazzo in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. Three submarine and one semi-submerged caves were surveyed and sampled using underwater photo sampling. Surveys have only taken into account the sessile species belonging to the main taxa: Porifera, Anthozoa, Bryozoa and Polychaeta. Diversity indices and abundances were calculated for three sections within each explored cave: the Entrance Zone, Intermediate Zone and Bottom Zone. The richest group was Porifera with 21 taxa, followed by cnidarians, (Anthozoa), with 8 taxa, Polychaeta (5 taxa), and Bryozoa (5 taxa). Among Porifera, the presence of …
Effects of recreational scuba diving on Mediterranean fishes: evidence of involuntary feeding?
2013
Despite a large body of literature assessing the impacts of recreational scuba diving on marine habitats, little attention has been paid to the potentially harmful effects this has on fishes. The aim of this study was the assessment of the immediate response of different fish species to divers’ activities. A decrease of fishes’ natural diffidence towards divers is shown, probably due to an enhanced availability of their prey as a result of divers’ contacts with the substrate.
Helminth Infection of the Loggerhead Sea Turtle Caretta caretta along the Coasts of Sicily and the North West Adriatic Sea
2021
We provide new data on the presence of helminth parasites in 64 individual loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta stranded along the coasts of Sicily and the northwest Adriatic Sea between June 2014 and August 2016. The necropsy examination revealed 31 individuals (48.4%) positive for endoparasites, showing a greater prevalence of trematodes than nematodes. In particular, seven species and a single genus of Trematoda (Hapalotrema) and a single species and genus of Nematoda (Kathlania) were identified. Among the Digenea flukes the species with the highest prevalence of infection were Rhytidodes gelatinosus (34.6%) and Hapalotrema sp. (33.3%), while among the Nematoda they were Kathlania sp. …
Descriptors of Posidonia oceanica meadows: Use and application
2005
This work benefited partly from the financial support of the European program ΓNTERREG IIIA Corsica, Sardinia. Tuscany
Microbial and meiofaunal response to intensive mussel-farm biodeposition in coastal sediments of the Western Mediterranean
2000
We studied the impact of organic loads due to the biodeposition of a mussel farm in a coastal area of the Tyrrhenian Sea (Western Mediterranean). Sediment chemistry, microbial and meiofaunal assemblages were investigated from March 1997 to February 1998 on monthly basis at two stations: the first was located under the mussel farm, while the second was at about 1-km distance and served as control. Benthic response to changes in the biodepositional regime was investigated in terms of biochemical composition of the sedimentary organic matter, phytopigment content, bacterial abundance and composition and meiofaunal community structure. A large accumulation of chloroplastic pigments, proteins an…
An updated checklist of Recent ostracods (Crustacea: Ostracoda) from inland waters of Sicily and adjacent small islands with notes on their distribut…
2020
Because of its position in the middle of the Mediterranea Sea and a complex geological history that has promoted repeated waves of biological colonization, Sicily (Southern Italy) is of particular interest from a biogeographical perspective. A number of previous investigations, dating back as far as the end of the 19th century, have contributed to gather information about the occurrence of Recent non-marine ostracods in Sicily, making this region one of the most intensively studied areas of the Central Mediterranean. Published data on ostracod distributions have been integrated through an extensive field survey on mainland Sicily and surrounding small islands and archipelagos. Altogether, 2…
Spatial and temporal variation of community composition and species cover following dune restoration in the Devesa de Albufera (Valencia, Spain).
2015
Plant populations were reintroduced to the coastal dune bar of the Devesa de Albufera from 1988 to 2004; different coastline sections received different species composition and cover. With the aim to detect spatial and temporal variation of floristic diversity, we compared current species composition and cover across the length of the Devesa and across the dune bar with those imposed at the time of restoration. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) detected significant differences both across the dune faces and across the coast sections. Differences across the dune faces reflect the sea-inland ecological gradient and resulted from a spatial rearrangement of plant populations: Calystegi…
Desalination by sea wave in small islands: The case of study of Lampedusa (Italy)
2018
The paper analyses the theme of water energy nexus, investigating a specific industrial process: desalination. In particular, the paper reports a case of study, applied in the small island of Lampedusa, located at south of Sicily (Italy). As the many small islands in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Lampedusa presents a small electrical grid, not connected to the mainland. The electrical production is entrusted to old diesel engines, consuming fossil fuel, transported by boat from Sicily. Besides, the renewable energy sources are extremely underdeveloped in this territory, since the environmental constraints make complex the use of technologies, like wind turbines or photovoltaic panels…