Sistemi naturali di biofiltrazione, di produzione e di emissione di antifouling naturali a base di spugne per l\u2019abbattimento dell\u2019inquinamento organico e inorganico in ambienti portuali, porti canale, ambienti lagunari, impianti di acquicoltura e industriali. SAFEAQUAPLAN (Sponges as Active FiltErfiders against AQUAtic organic and inorganic Pollution in harbours Lagoons, Aquaculture and iNdustrial plants

Primo brevetto italiano per un sistema di biorimedio con spugn

LAND FORCING CONTROLS PELAGIC-BENTHIC COUPLING IN ADELIE COVE (TERRA NOVA BAY, ROSS SEA)

Benthic-pelagic coupling processes were studied in Adelie Cove, a small 70-m deep V-shaped bay, located on the coast of Terra Nova Bay (Ross Sea). This cove is set apart from the open sea by a 12- to 15-m deep sill. Samplings were carried out over 20 days in summer 1997/1998 in the water column, in the sediment and in material collected from the sea-bottom interface by means of a sediment trap. Benthic communities were studied mainly using ROV video tapes. The complex and peculiar interactions between physical, chemical and biological processes, both in the water column and in the sediments, were tightly linked to a katabatic wind pattern, which is the main constraint in water mass circulation. A clear evolution in organic matter distribution and composition was observed. These processes led to a high build-up of materials in the sediments in the deepest part of the cove, which favoured deposit-feeding species and largely contributed to the organic enrichment of the sediments

The ecology of freshwater planarians.

Planarians are on the rise as a model system for regeneration and stem cell dynamics. Almost in parallel the interest in planarian field biology has declined. Besides representing an independent research discipline in its own right, understanding of the natural habitat is also directly relevant to optimizing culture conditions in the laboratory. Moreover, the current laboratory models are but few of hundreds of planarian species worldwide. Their adaptation to a wide range of ecological niches has resulted in a fascinating diversity of regenerative abilities, body size, reproduction strategies, and life expectancy, to name just a few. With the currently ongoing establishment of large planarian species collections, such phenotypic diversity becomes accessible to comparative mechanistic analysis in the laboratory. Overall, we hope that this chapter inspires an integral view of the planarian model system that not only includes the molecular and cellular processes under investigation but also the evolutionary forces that shaped them in the first place