Demography of the bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus (Mammalia: Delphinidae) in the Eastern Ligurian Sea (NW Mediterranean): quantification of female reproductive parameters

AbstractThe reproductive histories of 41 adult bottlenose dolphin females were analysed using photo-identification data collected between 2006 and 2014 in four sub-areas of the eastern Ligurian Sea (northwest Mediterranean). The Rapallo sub-area revealed the highest (highly significant) frequency of encounters (per unit effort) of reproductive females in association with young individuals, therefore emerging as a candidate nursery area in the region. The estimated fertility rate of adult females ranged between 290 and 407 births per 1000 individuals per year, higher than that of other known bottlenose dolphin populations, with a calving interval between 2.45 and 3.5 years. These results will be useful for projecting future trends of this (sub)population

Establishment of a national network of cetacean monitoring within the marine strategy

CONISMA, CNR and CIRCE, involved Italian research units (RUs) working on cetaceans to joina National Network answering the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requirements by sharing monitoring data. Data obtained during the 2016 monitoring campaigns by 13 RUs are presented here

Cetaceans in the Mediterranean Sea. Encounter rate, dominant species, and diversity hotspots

We investigated the presence and diversity of cetaceans in the Mediterranean Sea, analysing the data collected by 32 different research units, over a period of 15 years (2004–2018), and shared on the common web-GIS platform named Intercet. We used the encounter rate, the species prevalence, and the Shannon diversity index as parameters for data analysis. The results show that cetacean diversity, in the context of the Mediterranean basin, is generally quite low when compared with the eastern Atlantic, as few species, namely the striped dolphin, the bottlenose dolphin, the fin whale, and the sperm whale, dominate over all the others. However, some areas, such as the Alboran Sea or the north-western Mediterranean Sea, which includes the Pelagos Sanctuary (the Specially Protected Area of Mediterranean Interest located in the northern portion of the western basin), show higher levels of diversity and should be considered hotspots to be preserved. Primary production and seabed profile seem to be the two main drivers influencing the presence and distribution of cetaceans, with the highest levels of diversity observed in areas characterized by high levels of primary production and high bathymetric variability and gradient. This collective work underlines the importance of data sharing to deepen our knowledge on marine fauna at the scale of the whole Mediterranean Sea and encourages greater efforts in the networking process, also to accomplish the requirements of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, with particular reference to Descriptor 1: biological diversity is maintained

Architettura rurale nel Parco del Beigua. Guida alla manutenzione e al recupero.

The Guide, directly reffered to the site of the regional park f Beigua, face the vast and complex theme of the future destiny of rural architecture, which many studies have been devoted to, at least since a century, merging input from multiple disciplines. Recently there has been a renewed and growing interest in these kind of artifacts, associated with agricultural use, but a real consciousness on the complexity of the problem of its enhancement is still missing, even due to the lack of systematic studies, which date at the thirties and fifties of last century. The Guide is strongly pushing the attention of the user to the importance of the design process; the book intends to give advice without, in the meantime, interfering with specific proposals (case by case). The Guide has to be intended as an instrument that aims to define some questions and to provide possible answers, avoiding the definition of standardized detailed solutions. Authors prefer, in fact, to clarify the presence of different problems, connected together, each of which may be solved through different technical answers, chosen case by case by the Guide\u2019s users. The book is based on the knowledge that, before putting hand on an existing building, you must have investigated its materials, constructive methods, structural logic, state of conservation, reasons and causes which have led to structural desease. The text, therefore, suggests a path through the consistency of traditional rural architecture, highlighting values and defects, required new performances and constraints, aiming to preserve and enhance, as much as possible, a fragile inheritance, in balance with its surrounding landscape. The Guide is divided into chapters, each relating to a specific part of the building (walls, roofs, floors ...) and preceded by an initial chapter on different building morphologies linked to the type of use and landscape. Each chapter follows the same structure: a description of the materials and constructive techniques, recurrent degradation phoenomena, structural desease and functional defects, performances required by new uses, information on preventive analyses to be performed. Following the description of the actual state of the building(s) or its part(s), is a description of general principles to achieve a \u201csustainable\u201d recovery; this description is accompanied also by pictures and brief descriptions of some interventions considered as "critical". Once the chapter has clearly defined all the problems (defects) that afflict a buildings or one of its part and, in the meantime, what could be considered as a value to be preserved, there is a description, in text and graphic form, of different possible technical alternative measures related to the specific problems previously identified