Search results for "Paleoecologia"
showing 10 items of 186 documents
Globorotalia truncatulinoides in Central - Western Mediterranean Sea during the Little Ice Age
2020
Abstract Globorotalia truncatulinoides oscillations have been recorded from different marine sediment cores collected in the central and western Mediterranean Sea. The abundances of this species over the last 500 yrs. demonstrates its potential value as bio-indicator of particular oceanographic condition during the Maunder Minimum (MM) event of the Little Ice Age (LIA). The comparison between the G. truncatulinoides abundance patterns of the Balearic Basin, central and south Tyrrhenian Sea and central and eastern Sicily Channel allows to highlight a similar response of this species during the MM event in the central-western Mediterranean Sea. The ecological meanings of this species and its …
High-frequency climate fluctuations over the last deglaciation in the Alboran Sea, Western Mediterranean: Evidence from calcareous plankton assemblag…
2018
Abstract A high resolution study, with a centennial scale resolution, has been performed on the calcareous plankton assemblage (coccolithophores and planktonic foraminifera) at Ocean Drilling Program Site 976, Alboran Sea (Western Mediterranean), focusing on the interval between 20 and 9 ka, in order to reconstruct changes in surface and subsurface water dynamics and productivity. The biotic surface water proxies integrate the extremely detailed (multi-decadal scale) geochemical data set and the pollen record already available at the core, thus providing a complete paleoenvironmental/paleoceanographic reconstruction. The results highlight the sensitivity of the calcareous plankton in record…
The end of the Messinian salinity crisis: Evidences from the Chelif Basin (Algeria).
2007
How did the Messinian Salinity Crisis end is a matter of intense debate between two opposite concepts i.e., the generalised dilution event, the so-called Lago–Mare, followed by the sudden restoration of the marine conditions at the base of the Zanclean, or the early partial or complete marine refill that would have happened earlier during the upper Messinian. The Chelif Basin of Northwestern Algeria, one of the greatest Messinian marginal basins of the Mediterranean, provides an exceptional opportunity to study in detail how this major paleoenvironmental change occurred through continuous sedimentary records of the Miocene–Pliocene boundary. Five sections representative of both the central …
New Bovid Remains from the Early Pleistocene of Umbria (Italy) and a Reappraisal of Leptobos merlai
2017
The extinct bovid Leptobos is one of the most characteristic elements of Eurasian faunal assemblages during most of the Villafranchian Land Mammal Age (i.e., from the late Pliocene to most of the early Pleistocene). Several species of this genus have been established since the end of XIX Century, but their taxonomic status and phylogenetic relationships remain unclear due to the fact that most of them are described on the basis of scanty material. European species are divided into two groups or lineages. The first includes L. stenometopon, L. merlai, and the poorly known L. furtivus, the second L. etruscus and L. vallisarni. While the last two species are well documented in the Italian earl…
Observations on the postcranial anatomy of Hoplitomeryx (Mammalia, Ruminantia, Hoplitomerycidae) from the Miocene of the Apulia Platform (Italy)
2016
The untypical ruminants of the Apulia Platform (central and southeastern Italy), originally accommodated in the genus Hoplitomeryx, have been recently revised. The Scontrone (Abruzzo, central Italy) representatives were included in a new genus, Scontromeryx, with the addition of a new species, Scontromeryx mazzai. In contrast, the Gargano ones were left in Hoplitomeryx, but also in this case with the addition of three new species, Hoplitomeryx devosi, H. macpheei, and H. kriegsmani, described on postcranial remains and based on body mass calculations and using a size class scoring technique. The results of the present study show that Scontromeryx is invalid, that S. mazzai is imperfectly de…
“Hidden invaders” conquer the Sicily Channel and knock on the door of the Western Mediterranean sea
2019
Abstract This study updates the current distribution, range expansion and establishment status of the non-indigenous species Amphistegina lobifera Larsen, 1976 and other foraminifera that are cryptogenic in the Sicily Channel. Prior to this study, amphisteginids were reported from the Levantine Basin, the Central Mediterranean (Tunisia, Malta, Pelagian islands) and the southern Adriatic Sea. Here, we provide new records documenting a north-western expansion in the Central Mediterranean. In summer-autumn 2017 and spring-summer 2018, we collected algae and sediment samples from shallow coastal habitats along the shores of the Maltese archipelago, southern and north-western Sicily, Pantelleria…
The tangled cases of Deinogalerix (Late Miocene endemic erinaceid of Gargano) and Galericini (Eulipotyphla, Erinaceidae): a cladistic perspective.
2018
The Late Miocene giant erinaceid Deinogalerix from Scontrone and Gargano (Italy) is associated with many other vertebrates in deposits of a past island, the “Abruzzo-Apulia Platform”. At Gargano, Deinogalerix is accompanied by the moderately endemized Galericini Apulogalerix. This first extensive cladistic analysis is aimed at defining the relationships of Deinogalerix with characteristic members of the tribe Galericini. The analysis was performed on a matrix of 30 characters and 19 taxa and identified some smaller clades, nested within three major ones. The latter include: (i) a pentatomy of Galerix species, (ii) a polytomy of “transitional” Galerix–Parasorex species and (iii) a large clad…
Reconstructing Bioinvasion Dynamics Through Micropaleontologic Analysis Highlights the Role of Temperature Change as a Driver of Alien Foraminifera I…
2021
Invasive alien species threaten biodiversity and ecosystem structure and functioning, but incomplete assessments of their origins and temporal trends impair our ability to understand the relative importance of different factors driving invasion success. Continuous time-series are needed to assess invasion dynamics, but such data are usually difficult to obtain, especially in the case of small-sized taxa that may remain undetected for several decades. In this study, we show how micropaleontologic analysis of sedimentary cores coupled with radiometric dating can be used to date the first arrival and to reconstruct temporal trends of foraminiferal species, focusing on the alien Amphistegina lo…
Impact of Freshwater Inflow From the Volturno River on Coastal Circulation
2020
The coastal area located in front of the Volturno river's estuary (Gulf of Gaeta, central-eastern Tyrrhenian Sea) has been synoptically sampled during seven surveys, between June 2012 and October 2014. The vertical profiles of temperature and salinity have been acquired on a high resolution nearly-regular grid, in order to describe the spatial and temporal variability of the water masses characteristics. Moreover, to provide a first assessment of the steady circulation at small scale, the three-dimensional velocity field associated to each survey has been obtained through the full momentum equations of the Princeton Ocean Model. The data analysis has shown the entire water column characteri…
The Gemmellaro Collection: first record of an anomuran from the Tithonian of Sicily, Italy
2017
A recent field trip to Sicily and an examination of decapod crustacean collections at the Museo Geologico G.G. Gemmellaro in the centre of Palermo, Sicily (Italy), has demonstrated that most of the anomuran and brachyuran material described by Gemmellaro (Gemmellaro GG. 1869. Studi paleontologici sulla fauna del Calcare àTerebratula janitordel nord di Sicilia. Palermo: Lao, vol. 1, pp. 11–18) from the Tithonian of that island is still present. Interestingly, a single specimen in this lot was never mentioned, described or illustrated by that author. The species to which this particular individual is here shown to belong,Gastrosacus tuberosus, was first described and named 26 years later, in …