Stratigraphic paleobiology of late Quaternary mollusk assemblages from the Po Plain-Adriatic Sea system

Stratigraphic paleobiology - a relatively new approach for investigating fossiliferous sedimentary successions - is rooted on the assumption that the fossil record cannot be read at face value, being controlled not only by biotic, but also by sedimentary processes that control deposition and erosion of sediments. By applying the stratigraphic paleobiology tenets, this Ph.D. project focused on acquisition and analyses of macrofossils data to assess the response of late Quaternary ecosystems to environmental changes and enhance stratigraphic interpretations of fossiliferous successions. A primary activity of my Ph.D. research involved assembling a macrobenthic dataset from the latest Pleistocene glacial succession of the near-Mid Adriatic Deep (Central Adriatic, Italy). This dataset once combined with its counterpart from the Po coastal plain (Holocene), will offer a unique perspective on mollusk faunas and their dynamics during the current glacial-interglacial cycle. This thesis includes four papers. The first one assessed the quality and resolution of the macrofossil record from transgressive Holocene deposits of Po plain (Italy). The second paper focused on the Holocene fossil record of the Po coastal plain to evaluate the response of trematode parasites to high-frequency sea-level oscillations. The third study investigated distribution of last occurrences of macrobenthic species along a down-dip transect in the Po coastal plain and evaluate potential effects of sequence stratigraphic architecture on mass extinction pattern. The fourth is a case study to test the robustness of the paleoecological pattern derived by the application of different ordination analyses (DCA and nMDS) and to assess the main environmental driver(s) of faunal turnover in marine settings. In summary, my Ph.D. demonstrates that even if the fossil record cannot always be read literally, the stratigraphic paleobiology approach to the geologic record makes it possible to interpret biological trends from the fossil record and enhance the stratigraphic resolution of fossiliferous successions

Early-Middle Pleistocene benthic turnover and oxygen isotope stratigraphy from the Central Mediterranean (Valle di Manche, Crotone Basin, Italy): data and trends

Ostracod faunal turnover and oxygen isotope data (foraminifera) along the Valle di Manche (VdM) section are herein compiled. Specifically, the material reported in this work includes quantitative palaeoecological data and patterns of ostracod fauna framed within a high-resolution oxygen isotope stratigraphy (δ18O) from Uvigerina peregrina. In addition, the multivariate ostracod faunal stratigraphic trend (nMDS axis-1 sample score) is calibrated using bathymetric distributions of extant molluscs sampled from the same stratigraphic intervals along the VdM section. Data and analyses support the research article “Dynamics of benthic marine communities across the Early-Middle Pleistocene boundary in the Mediterranean region (Valle di Manche, Southern Italy): biotic and stratigraphic implications” Rossi et al. [1]

Resilient biotic response to long-term climate change in the Adriatic Sea

Preserving adaptive capacities of coastal ecosystems, which are currently facing the ongoing climate warming and a multitude of other anthropogenic impacts, requires an understanding of long-term biotic dynamics in the context of major environmental shifts prior to human disturbances. We quantified responses of nearshore mollusk assemblages to long-term climate and sea-level changes using 223 samples (similar to 71,300 specimens) retrieved from latest Quaternary sediment cores of the Adriatic coastal systems. These cores provide a rare chance to study coastal systems that existed during glacial lowstands. The fossil mollusk record indicates that nearshore assemblages of the penultimate interglacial (Late Pleistocene) shifted in their faunal composition during the subsequent ice age, and then reassembled again with the return of interglacial climate in the Holocene. These shifts point to a climate-driven habitat filtering modulated by dispersal processes. The resilient, rather than persistent or stochastic, response of the mollusk assemblages to long-term environmental changes over at least 125 thousand years highlights the historically unprecedented nature of the ongoing anthropogenic stressors (e.g., pollution, eutrophication, bottom trawling, and invasive species) that are currently shifting coastal regions into novel system states far outside the range of natural variability archived in the fossil record

Strategi Pelayanan Administrasi KBIH Al-Munawwaroh Deket Lamongan

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui: pertama, apa saja strategi yang diterapkan pada KBIH al-Munawwaroh Deket Lamongan. Kedua, pelaksanaan strategi pelayanan administrasi KBIH Al-Munawwaroh Deket Lamongan .Pada penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dari jenis deskriptif. Data yang diperoleh peneliti yaitu data primer. Data tersebut diperoleh dari hasil wawancara, dokumentasi, dan observasi. Pada keabsahan data peneliti menggunakan metode triangulasi untuk menguji validitas data. Pada tahap analisis data peneliti melakukan deskripsi secara detail, coding, kategorisasi dan analisis atau penafsiran. Hasil dari penelitian yang diperoleh adalah Strategi pelayanan administrasi pada KBIH Al-Munawwaroh. Strategi tersebut antara lain: pertama, keunggulan biaya menyeluruh untuk meringankan beban jamaah haji. kedua, diferensiasi yaitu memberikan pelayanann yang terbaik untuk memberikan manfaat pada jamaah haji. Pelaksanaan strategi pelayanan administrasi pada KBIH Al-Munawwaroh sesuai dengan teori implementasi strategi yaitu: pertama, meluruskan inisiatif yang adanya relevansi dengan strategi pelayanan untuk mempermudah pelaksanaannya. Kedua, Melibatkan staff dan karyawan, pelaksanaan strategi pelayanan administrasi KBIH Al-Munawwaroh melibatkan pengurus di dalamnya. Pengurus merupakan penanggung jawab dari pelaksana strategi koordinator tiap wilayah tersebut

NEMO-SN1 Abyssal Cabled Observatory in the Western Ionian Sea

The NEutrinoMediterranean Observatory—Submarine Network 1 (NEMO-SN1) seafloor observatory is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, Western Ionian Sea, off Eastern Sicily (Southern Italy) at 2100-m water depth, 25 km from the harbor of the city of Catania. It is a prototype of a cabled deep-sea multiparameter observatory and the first one operating with real-time data transmission in Europe since 2005. NEMO-SN1 is also the first-established node of the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor Observatory (EMSO), one of the incoming European large-scale research infrastructures included in the Roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) since 2006. EMSO will specifically address long-term monitoring of environmental processes related to marine ecosystems, marine mammals, climate change, and geohazards

Mid Adriatic Deep Dataset

This dataset is part of an ongoing larger project that aims to build a comprehensive macrobenthic dataset from the Po Plain‒Adriatic Sea system by sampling both sedimentary successions and present-day depositional surfaces. During my Ph.D. research, I processed samples taken from the Mid Adriatic Deep (MAD) and near-MAD cored sedimentary succession in the central Adriatic, that contain marine lowstand deltaic and costal deposits from the last glacial time interval. Although an abundance of data has been gathered from the sedimentary succession of the Adriatic Sea, the dynamics of the macrobenthic community preserved there has been little investigated. The taxonomic and ecological information reported in the MAD dataset will represent a keystone for enhancing the knowledge of the molluscan fauna during the last glacial period

Trematode-Bivalve interaction in regressive back-barrier settings of the Po Plain (Italy).

Elucidating the history of biotic interactions in the fossil record has been a primary theme in paleobiology during the last decades. The majority of this pursuit has been the examination of the activities of predators, and has highlighted the likely role of antagonistic interactions in shaping macroevolutionary trends. However, the role of parasite-host interactions in deep time has not received comparable systematic treatment. Parasitism is one of the most pervasive phenomena amongst modern eukaryotic life and, by contrast, only a minority of studies are known about it in deep time. Here, looking for trematode induced pits, we surveyed >3,000 valves from cored Holocene back-barrier (freshwater to brackish) regressive deposits of the south-eastern Po coastal plain (Northern Italy). The results are contrasted against previous investigations that focused on more distal, shallow marine (shoreface to offshore transition) deposits from the same area. As in previously (and more distally) investigated deposits, preliminary results indicate that digenean trematodes are selective parasites in terms of host taxonomy and host body size. Indeed the bulk of trematode traces were recovered in Abra segmentum: a shallow infaunal siphonate bivalve. Furthermore, as in previous investigations, trematode distribution was environmentally restricted, primarily recovered in lagoonal paleoenvironments with a peak in inner lagoonal settings. Trematode prevalence is higher in lagoonal settings than in lower shoreface settings. Such studies of trematodes prevalence and its millennial scale dynamics are also of basic importance to providing a reference system for evaluating severity and significance of anthropogenic changes in such environments

Trematode-Bivalve interaction in regressive back-barrier settings of the Po Plain (Italy).

Elucidating the history of biotic interactions in the fossil record has been a primary theme in paleobiology during the last decades. The majority of this pursuit has been the examination of the activities of predators, and has highlighted the likely role of antagonistic interactions in shaping macroevolutionary trends. However, the role of parasite-host interactions in deep time has not received comparable systematic treatment. Parasitism is one of the most pervasive phenomena amongst modern eukaryotic life and, by contrast, only a minority of studies are known about it in deep time. Here, looking for trematode induced pits, we surveyed >3,000 valves from cored Holocene back-barrier (freshwater to brackish) regressive deposits of the south-eastern Po coastal plain (Northern Italy). The results are contrasted against previous investigations that focused on more distal, shallow marine (shoreface to offshore transition) deposits from the same area. As in previously (and more distally) investigated deposits, preliminary results indicate that digenean trematodes are selective parasites in terms of host taxonomy and host body size. Indeed the bulk of trematode traces were recovered in Abra segmentum: a shallow infaunal siphonate bivalve. Furthermore, as in previous investigations, trematode distribution was environmentally restricted, primarily recovered in lagoonal paleoenvironments with a peak in inner lagoonal settings. Trematode prevalence is higher in lagoonal settings than in lower shoreface settings. Such studies of trematodes prevalence and its millennial scale dynamics are also of basic importance to providing a reference system for evaluating severity and significance of anthropogenic changes in such environments

Macrobenthic community response to long-term climate change in the Adriatic Sea (Italy)

The ecological consequences of climate change on marine ecosystems remains poorly understood, particularly for ecological communities that reside in enclosed basins, which limit marine species in their ability to migrate. Here we use assemblages of late Quaternary fossils mollusks preserved in nearshore sediments to explore how nearshore marine benthic communities responded to past climate changes in the northern Adriatic. We focus on three time periods: (1) the last interglacial (<125ka BP), when regional temperatures were higher than today, representing a possible analogue for the near-future global warming; (2) the last late glacial 14.5-18.0 ka BP; and (3) the mid-Holocene 6.0-1.0 ka BP, when conditions were similar to today but with a minimal human impact. Temporal dynamics of benthic communities was assessed by applying multivariate and resampling approaches to abundance data for core-derived samples of fossil mollusks. Results demonstrate that the penultimate interglacial benthic assemblages shifted to a new community state during the subsequent glacial period. The shift represented a decline in abundance of exclusively Mediterranean nearshore species and a concurrent increase in abundance of nearshore species of cosmopolitan and boreal affinity. This shift was, most likely, driven by global climate cooling. Following this major community restructuring, the local nearshore communities had reversed back to their previous state during the mid-Holocene, when interglacial climate conditions were fully reestablished again. We conclude that the nearshore community responded to long-term climate changes by displaying a resilient (rather than persistent or stochastic) behavior, with Holocene biota reversing back to the pre-existing interglacial state. However, regional pollution, trawling and the threat of spreading invasive species are already taking their toll and the present-day communities are shifting to a novel, historical unprecedented community state. Nonetheless, our findings indicate that if local and regional threats can be mitigated, the coastal marine communities of the northern Adriatic would be resilient against limited climate warming in the near future