Innocenti, Gianna

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Biodiversity Journal, 2017, 8 (2): 513–514A preliminary assessment of the amphipod collections inNaturalistic Museums in ItalyGianna InnocentiMuseo di Storia Naturale, Sezione di Zoologia “La Specola”, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via Romana 17, 50125 Firenze,Italy; email: gianna.innocenti@unifi.itABSTRACTReceived 30.04.2017; accepted 31.05.2017; printed 30.06.2017Proceedings of the 17th International Colloquium on Amphipoda (17th ICA), September 4th-7th 2017, Trapani (Italy)A first assessment on the presence of Amphipoda collections in Italian Natural HistoryMuseums is given.INTRODUCTIONWith the exception of the Museo Civico diStoria Naturale in Verona, where the precious andhuge collection of Amphipoda studied and preser-ved by Sandro Ruffo is present (Ruffo & Krapp,2005), few information are available regarding thepresence of specimens belonging to this order inItalian Museums of Natural History.For instance, a year ago, just by chance, it waspossible to ascertain the presence of Clelia Cec-chini’s amphipod type specimens in the Museo diStoria Naturale, Università di Firenze (Lo Brutto,2017).Thus, a first survey on the presence of amphi-pods among the Arthropoda Crustacea collectionshas been carried out, with the aid of the Asso-ciazione Nazionale Musei Scientifici (ANMS;www.anms.it) database, in order to give a prelimi-nary evaluation to the researchers in the field.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSThirty-eight Museums, belonging to differentInstitutions (Municipality, University or other) werecontacted by e-mail. Museums confirming thepresence of amphipods were later on contacted inorder to have as much information as possible,regarding the consistence of the collection, the ori-gin, the researchers who studied them and if typespecimens were among the material. Only 13 Mu-seums confirmed to held Amphipoda among theCrustacean collections, 3 declared that the collec-tions were present, but their status could not be as-sessed, while 2 Museums never answered (Table 1). Among the above-mentioned 13 Museums, onlyfive (Bergamo, Ferrara, Firenze, Genova andUdine) detain conspicuous collections, that is to say,more than 100 specimens, comprising type speci-mens, from both freshwater and marine habitats,mostly from Italian rivers, caves, lagoons and seas.Indeed the majority of the amphipods held in theItalian Museums are from freshwater habitats (Fig.1), with the collection in Udine Museum reachingmore than 47,000 specimens (P. Glerean, pers.comm.) collected from the Friuli region. Prof. Sandro Ruffo and Dr Fabio Stoch haveidentified most of them. Historical and recent newspecies were studied by Clelia Cecchini (Firenze),Teresita Maccagno (Genova) and Cristina Munari(Ferrara). KEY WORDS Amphipoda; Natural History Museum collections; Italy.MONOGRAPHGIANNA INNOCENTIrelevant quantity of Amphipoda, mostly from Ital-ian localities, many of them available for study tointerested researchers.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe author is grateful to Dr Sabrina Lo Brutto(University of Palermo, Italy) for spurring the prep-aration of this note; many thanks are due to all theMuseum curators that answered this survey.REFERENCESLo Brutto S., 2017. A finding at the Natural History Mu-seum of Florence affords the holotype designation ofOrchestia stephenseni Cecchini, 1928 (Crustacea:Amphipoda: Talitridae). Zootaxa, 4231: 569–572.Ruffo S. & Krapp T., 2005. Catalogue of the amphipodcollection in the Museo Civico di Storia NaturaleVerona (Crustacea, Malacostraca). Museo Civico diStoria Naturale di Verona, Serie Cataloghi, 3: 1–98.514However, all the Museums are preserving manyspecimens, from several Italian localities, still to bestudied and identified.This preliminary assessment on the Italian Na-tural History Museum collections gives a firstglance on the presence of this group. Italian Mu-seums, as archives of biodiversity, are preserving aFigure 1. Data on the origin habitat of the Amphipoda col-lections in Italian Museums (orange: marine or brackish;blue: freshwater).Table 1. Lists of the contacted Italian Museums holding Amphipoda, with unavailable collections or without information.Museums holding Amphipoda collections City Type specimens presentMuseo Civico di Scienze Naturali "E. Caffi" BergamoMuseo Civico di Storia Naturale Carmagnola (Torino)Museo Civico di Storia Naturale Ferrara xMuseo di Storia Naturale, Università di Firenze Firenze xMuseo Civico di Storia Naturale "G. Doria" Genova xStazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Napoli Museo di Storia naturale, Università di Parma ParmaAccademia dei Fisiocritici SienaMuseo delle Scienze di Trento TrentoMusei Civici di Storia Naturale di Trieste TriesteMuseo Friulano di Storia Naturale UdineSistema museale di ateneo, Università di Pavia Pavia NAVMuseo Regionale di Scienze naturali Torino NAVMuseo Civico di Storia Naturale Venezia NAVCivici musei e gallerie Reggio Emilia NAMuseo di Storia naturale dello stretto di Messina e del MediterraneoVilla San Giovanni(Reggio Calabria) NANAV=Not Available; NA=No Answer

A preliminary assessment of the amphipod collections in Naturalistic Museums in Italy

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A preliminary assessment of the amphipod collections in Naturalistic Museums in Italy

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