Keys to Nature: A test on the iPhone market

Several keys running on mobile devices were developed by the KeyToNature project. Most of them are freely downoadable online. The rapid spread of smartphones has opened up new opportunities in the production and distribution of multimedia applications for the educational sector, including interactive keys to identify organisms. This market is new, still partly unexplored and changing fast. The Department of Life Sciences of the University of Trieste and Divulgando Srl, have tested its potential by uploading in the iTunes Store different types of keys for the iPhone, some of them for free, others for sale. This paper introduces the issue of global market applications, summarizes the experience gained in our case-studies, and suggests ways to make these applications economically viable

Citizens’ Eyes on Mnemiopsis: How to Multiply Sightings with a Click!

Monitoring the spreading of marine invasive species represents one of the most relevant challenges for marine scientists in order to understand their impact on the environment. In recent years, citizen science is becoming more and more involved in research programs, especially taking advantage of new digital technologies. Here, we present the results obtained in the first 20 months (from 12 July 2019 to 8 March 2021) since launching avvistAPP. This new app was conceived to track the spreading of the invasive ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi in the Adriatic Sea; it was also designed to collect sightings of 18 additional marine taxa (ctenophores, jellyfish, sea turtles, dolphins, salps and noble pen shell). A total of 1224 sightings were recorded, of which 530 referred to Mnemiopsis, followed by the scyphozoan jellyfish Rhizostoma pulmo (22%), Cotylorhiza tuberculata (11%) and Aurelia spp. (8%). avvistAPP produced data confirming the presence of Mnemiopsis (often in abundances > 20 individuals m−2) along almost the entire Italian coast in the summer of 2019 and 2020

Alla scoperta della biodiversit\ue0 con la guida alle piante legnose della Provincia di Brescia

Descrizione della guida alle piante legnose della Provincia di Brescia; in allegato il CD-ROM

An information system on Italian liverworts, hornworts and mosses

The checklist of hornworts, liverworts and mosses of Italy is available online as a federated database, which can be queried by combining taxonomic and distributional information. Several digital identification keys have been included in the system, which will be part of the forthcoming Italian Biodiversity Network