A massive record of the rare ‘mole crab’ Albunea carabus (Decapoda: Anomura: Hippoidea) along the sandy coasts of Catania

Amongst the Crustacea, the Decapoda (which include crayfish, crabs, lobsters, prawns, and shrimp) represent a highly diverse group adapted to many different marine and freshwater environments. Members of the Superfamily Hippoidea are commonly referred to as mole crabs. This group includes three families of which one, Albuneidae, is represented in the Mediterranean basin by only one species, the mole crab, Albunea carabus (Linnaeus, 1758).peer-reviewe

Riordino e aggiornamento tassonomico della "Collezione di Malacologia Ecologica" di Pietro Parenzan - Prima parte

Collection was realized dredging sea bottoms along the coasts of Apulia and through specimens exchange activities with other famous malacologists. The present work represents a first contribution to the restitution of the historical and documentary heritage named "Ecological Malacology Collection" by the Prof. P. Parenzan to the scientific community. Such a purpose has been pursued through photographic documentation, ordering and conservation renewal activities, but also through the realization of a digital catalogue and by a modernization of the taxonomical positioning of specimens which, by now, is limited to 1241 mono specific shell groups (on a total of 6794)

New taxonomical and biological observations on Jujubinus seguenzae (Gastropoda: Vetigastropoda: Trochidae)

The family Trochidae, commonly known as top-snails or top-shells, has recently received a lot of attention, especially the representatives of the genus Jujubinus. Eighteen extant taxa of this genus occur in the Mediterranean. It is however still unclear whether some of these should be classified as separate species or subspecies. Jujubinus seguenzae Ghisotti & Melone, 1975 is among the taxa of uncertain classification. This taxon is endemic to the Strait of Messina, where it is likely to inhabit shallow waters, although only one living specimen has been documented. This species is currently considered a nomen dubium due to the scant information available in the literature and its morphological resemblance to J. striatus (L., 1758). Photographs of the type material of this latter species, in the Linnean collection, were examined. Although it was clear that this taxon includes more than one single species, none was attributable to J. seguenzae.peer-reviewe

Are the saltwater oysters Pinctada radiata and P. fucata synonyms or different species? : the case of some Mediterranean populations

The earliest reported alien species that entered the Mediterranean after only nine years from the opening of the Suez Canal was ‘Meleagrina’ sp. This was subsequently identified as the Gulf pearl-oyster, Pinctada radiata (Leach, 1814). Thereafter, an increasing series of records of this species followed. Nowadays it can be considered a well-established species throughout the Mediterranean basin.peer-reviewe

First operations of the LNS heavy ions facility

Abstract A heavy ion facility is now available at Laboratorio Nazionale del Sud (LNS) of Catania. It can deliver beams with an energy up to 100 MeV/amu. The facility is based on a 15MV HVEC tandem and a K = 800 superconducting cyclotron as booster. During the last year, the facility came into operation. A 58Ni beam delivered by the tandem has been radially injected in the SC and then has been accelerated and extracted at 30 MeV/amu. In this paper the status of the facility together with the experience gained during the commissioning will be extensively reported

Thick-target inverse kinematic method in order to investigate alpha-clustering in212Po

The inverse-kinematic thick-target method has been used in order to investigate 212Po alpha-structure by the elastic scattering of 208Pb on 4He target. A 208Pb beam, accelerated by the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) of Laboratori Nazionali del Sud - INFN, at the incident energy of 10.1 A MeV was impinging onto a specifically designed 4He gas cell, two meter long. The gas cell wasacting both as target and as beam degrader, stopping the beam before reaching the alpha-particle detection system placed at 0° with respect to the beam axis. In order to disentangle the elastic contribution from other reaction channels (e.g. inelastic scattering) a microchannel plate was used to measure the Time of Flight(ToF) of both the 208Pb beam particles and the ejectiles along the gas cell. The 208Pbstopping power in the 4He gas target was also measured, as a key ingredient in order to establish theinteraction point inside the gas cell, in turn determining the solid angle covered by the detector. In the following, the experimental technique will be described, and the results of a preliminary data analysis will be shown

New Alien Mediterranean Biodiversity Records (August 2022)

In this Collective Article on alien and cryptogenic diversity in the Mediterranean Sea we report a total of 19 species belonging to nine Phyla and coming from nine countries. Several of these records concern fish species, and of particular interest are the first records of: Terapon puta for Italian waters; Pteragopus trispilus from Malta; Plotosus lineatus from Cyprus; and the northernmost Mediterranean record of Lagocephalus sceleratus. The northernmost Mediterranean record was also reported for the sea urchin Diadema setosum. The portunid crab Thalamita poissonii was recorded for the first time in Libya. The copepod Pseudodiaptomus marinus was recorded for the first time in the Marmara Sea. The polychaete Branchiomma luctuosum was recorded for the first time from the Mediterranean coast of France. The alien anemone Diadumene lineata was recorded for the first time from Slovenia. The macroalgae Sargassum furcatum was recorded for the first time from Italy. The new Mediterranean records here reported help tracing abundance and distribution of alien and cryptic species in the Mediterranean Sea

Note sull\u27ecologia e distribuzioned di Melanochlamys seurati (Vayssiere, 1926) (Cephalaspidea: Aglajidae) in Mar Mediterraneo

Volume: 42Start Page: 122End Page: 12

An approach based on the total-species accumulation curve and higher taxon richness to estimate realistic upper limits in regional species richness

Most of accumulation curves tend to underestimate species richness, as they do not consider spatial heterogeneity in species distribution, or are structured to provide lower bound estimates and limited extrapolations. The total‐species (T–S) curve allows extrapolations over large areas while taking into account spatial heterogeneity, making this estimator more prone to attempt upper bound estimates of regional species richness. However, the T–S curve may overestimate species richness due to (1) the mismatch among the spatial units used in the accumulation model and the actual units of variation in β‐diversity across the region, (2) small‐scale patchiness, and/or (3) patterns of rarity of species. We propose a new framework allowing the T–S curve to limit overestimation and give an application to a large dataset of marine mollusks spanning over 11 km2 of subtidal bottom (W Mediterranean). As accumulation patterns are closely related across the taxonomic hierarchy up to family level, improvements of the T–S curve leading to more realistic estimates of family richness, that is, not exceeding the maximum number of known families potentially present in the area, can be considered as conducive to more realistic estimates of species richness. Results on real data showed that improvements of the T–S curve to accounts for true variations in β‐diversity within the sampled areas, small‐scale patchiness, and rarity of families led to the most plausible richness when all aspects were considered in the model. Data on simulated communities indicated that in the presence of high heterogeneity, and when the proportion of rare species was not excessive (>2/3), the procedure led to almost unbiased estimates. Our findings highlighted the central role of variations in β‐diversity within the region when attempting to estimate species richness, providing a general framework exploiting the properties of the T–S curve and known family richness to estimate plausible upper bounds in γ‐diversity