The Lagoon of Venice covers a surface area of about 550 km2, roughly 80% of which is covered by w... more The Lagoon of Venice covers a surface area of about 550 km2, roughly 80% of which is covered by water, about 10% by salt marshes and 5% by islands. The mean depth of the water column is about 1.2 m, with only 5% of the lagoon deeper than 5 m. It is connected to the Adriatic Sea through three inlets (Lido, Malamocco, Chioggia), which allow tidal flushing twice a day. The mean tidal range is 61 cm (calculated on 1986-2004), the largest in the Mediterranean. The majority of the lagoon can be classified as mixoeuhaline/mixopolyhaline according to the "Venice System" (Anonymous, 1959), with a mean salinity of about 30, ranging from marine (around 37), to mesohaline (5 – 18) near the bay-head river mouths (Zirino et al., 2014). Because of the shallowness of the lagoon, water temperature follows the seasonal trends of air temperature, with very low values during winter, although seldom freezing, to above 30°C during summer. From the biological point of view, the benthic communiti...
The Northern Adriatic Sea is the northernmost basin of the Mediterranean Sea and one of its most ... more The Northern Adriatic Sea is the northernmost basin of the Mediterranean Sea and one of its most productive areas, characterized by a shallow depth and by a dominant cyclonic circulation. The oceanographic and meteorological parameters show a marked seasonal and interannual variability. The major forcings of the system are represented by the significant river inputs along the Italian coast, by the Eastern Adriatic Current-EAC, which brings high salinity and oligotrophic waters from the southern basin, and by the notable sea-level range, relatively to the Mediterranean area. The NAS is subject to multiple anthropogenic impacts, e.g.: nutrient inputs, coastal urbanization, fishing activity, tourism, and maritime trade. The basin has undergone marked eutrophication followed by a phase of oligotrophication and then by a recent increase in nutrient concentrations. The NAS has also been subjected to frequent development of mucilage aggregates until the first decade of the 2000s. The LTER-...
Due to its potentially severe impacts on the functioning of the marine systems, the interest in u... more Due to its potentially severe impacts on the functioning of the marine systems, the interest in understanding the ecology of invasive zooplanktivorous comb jellyfish Mnemiopsis leidyi has increased in the last decades, especially after its bloom in the Black and Caspian Sea in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the last decade, M. leidyi has colonized most of the Mediterranean Sea, including the Adriatic Sea, and in 2016 it was firstly recorded in the Venice Lagoon (Malej et al., 2017). The impact Mnemiopsis could have especially in the Venice Lagoon as a semi-enclosed ecosystem is of concern, as it is an important nursery and foraging area for several fish species as well as an area of mussel, clam, and crab fishery and aquaculture. While in the past, to study Mnemiopsis feeding preferences, the gut content was mainly analyzed by morphological identification, this is the first study investigating the in-situ gut contents of this species utilizing DNA metabarcoding, as it overcomes ...
Articles CoCoNet: towards coast to coast networks of marine protected areas (from the shore to th... more Articles CoCoNet: towards coast to coast networks of marine protected areas (from the shore to the high and deep sea), coupled with sea-based wind energy potential
The present database contains observations for 22 parameters of abiotic, phyto and zooplankton da... more The present database contains observations for 22 parameters of abiotic, phyto and zooplankton data collected in the Northern Adriatic Sea region (Italy). It relies on a Comma Separated Values file and it is composed by 108687 records. Due to its long temporal coverage, it is classifiable as Long Term Ecological data. Due to the long temporal coverage, the great part of parameters changed collection and analysis method in time. These variations are reported in the database. A long term database can be useful for multiple purposes. This database has been released under a research project focused on Open Science principles application to marine ecology, it is also deposited in B2Share repository (https://b2share.fz-juelich.de/records/f772ed02dcd1403a86fac5a6a19005ef) and metadata are available in DEIMS-SDR (Dynamic Ecological Information Management System - Site and dataset registry, https://deims.org/dataset/38d604ef-decb-4d67-8ac3-cc843d10d3ef). A datapaper, discussing methods, resu...
The Venice lagoon (VL) has been recognized as a hot spot of introduction of non-indigenous specie... more The Venice lagoon (VL) has been recognized as a hot spot of introduction of non-indigenous species (NIS), due to several anthropogenic factors and environmental stressors that combined may facilitate NIS invasions. In the last decades an increasing number of zooplankton NIS have been observed in the VL. This work aims to provide a picture of the annual cycle and distribution of the recently recorded non-indigenous copepod Oithona davisae, considering the coexistence patterns with the congeneric resident Oithona nana. Therefore, zooplankton samplings were carried out monthly from August 2016 to July 2017 at five Long-Term Ecological Research LTER stations in the VL. Oithona davisae showed a persistent occurrence throughout the year with the highest abundances in the warm season and in the inner areas, while the congeneric O. nana, showing a different distribution pattern, resulted more abundant near the inlets of the Lagoon, where O. davisae reached the minimum density. Oithona davis...
As DNA metabarcoding has become an emerging tool for surveying biodiversity, including its applic... more As DNA metabarcoding has become an emerging tool for surveying biodiversity, including its application in legally binding assessments, reliable and efficient barcodes are requested, especially for the highly diverse group of zooplankton. This study focuses on comparing the efficiency of two mitochondrial COI barcodes based on the internal primers mlCOIintF and mlCOIintR utilizing mesozooplankton samples collected in a Mediterranean lagoon. Our results indicate that after a slight adjustment, the mlCOIintR primer performs in combination with jdgLCO1490 (herein) very comparably to the much more widely used primer system mlCOIintF/jgHCO2198+dgHCO2198, in terms of level of taxonomic resolution, species detection and their relative abundance in terms of numbers of reads. As for some groups, like Ctenophora, this barcode is not suitable; a combination of them may be the best option to rely on the Folmer region in its entirety without the risk of losing information for a limited primer match.
Local biodiversity trends over time are likely to be decoupled from global trends, as local proce... more Local biodiversity trends over time are likely to be decoupled from global trends, as local processes may compensate or counteract global change. We analyze 161 long-term biological time series (15–91 years) collected across Europe, using a comprehensive dataset comprising ~6,200 marine, freshwater and terrestrial taxa. We test whether (i) local long-term biodiversity trends are consistent among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, and (ii) changes in biodiversity correlate with regional climate and local conditions. Our results reveal that local trends of abundance, richness and diversity differ among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, demonstrating that biodiversity changes at local scale are often complex and cannot be easily generalized. However, we find increases in richness and abundance with increasing temperature and naturalness as well as a clear spatial pattern in changes in community composition (i.e. temporal taxonomic turnover) in most biogeoregions of N...
Zooplankton biodiversity assessment is a crucial element in monitoring marine ecosystem processes... more Zooplankton biodiversity assessment is a crucial element in monitoring marine ecosystem processes and community responses to environmental alterations. In order to evaluate the suitability of metabarcoding for zooplankton biodiversity assessment and biomonitoring as a fast and more cost-effective method, seasonal zooplankton sampling was carried out in the Venice Lagoon and the nearby coastal area (Northern Adriatic Sea). The molecular analysis showed higher taxa richness compared to the classical morphological method (224 vs. 88 taxa), discriminating better the meroplanktonic component, morphologically identified only up to order level. Both methods revealed a similar spatio-temporal distribution pattern and the sequence abundances and individual counts were significantly correlated for various taxonomic groups. These results indicate that DNA metabarcoding is an efficient tool for biodiversity assessments in ecosystems with high spatial and temporal variability, where high sampling effort is required as well as fast alert systems for non-native species (NIS).
Abstract Changes in the composition and biomass distribution of deep-living zooplankton over wide... more Abstract Changes in the composition and biomass distribution of deep-living zooplankton over wide gradients of depth (0–1300 m) have been analyzed in the Central Ligurian Basin (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea), seeking the environmental variables responsible for these changes. Spring vertical distribution (early May 2013) and diel vertical migration (DVM) of some key species of macroplankton and micronekton communities were studied every 6 h during a 24 h cycle. The hauls, performed with the multiple opening/closing 230 µm BIONESS net system, made possible a detailed description of the vertical distribution of twenty-three species: one siphonophore, one pyrosomid, one salp, three pteropods, four amphipods, one mysid, eight euphausiids, two decapods, two fishes. Cluster analysis performed on major species of macroplankton and micronekton community assemblage mainly highlighted the presence of four well defined assemblages, based on the depth range in the water column: 0–60 m, 60–100 m, 100–600 m and from 600 to 1300 m. During daytime, vertical distributions of biomass exhibited similar profiles, with maxima in the 0–60 m layer. Highest abundances were recorded between 20–40 and 40–60 m depth, at midnight and in the morning. The highest values of both biodiversity and number of species were found in a deeper layer comprised between 400 and 600 m. Most of the species showed similar distributions throughout the sampled area, either with typical non-diel-migrating characters such as the euphausiid Stylocheiron longicorne and the fishes Cyclothone braueri and C. pygmaea, or with clear diel-migrant behaviour (e.g. the siphonophore Chelophyes appendiculata and the euphausiid Euphausia krohni). Some species (e.g. Vibilia armata, Phronima sedentaria, Scina crassicornis, Salpa fusiformis, Cavolinia inflexa, Gennadas elegans) exhibited a bimodal vertical distribution that could be attributed to different causes able to influence and modify their vertical migration. The lower values of chlorophylla concentrations found in the present studyinthe month of May corresponds to the transition period from a mesotrophic system to a rather oligotrophic one. Temperature and chlorophyll were the variables that principally influenced the distinction between shallow (0–60 m) and deep communities. Below 60 m depth, the dissolved oxygen and salinity become the most important variables affecting the zooplankton community.
The Lagoon of Venice has been recognized as a hot spot for the introduction of nonindigenous spec... more The Lagoon of Venice has been recognized as a hot spot for the introduction of nonindigenous species. Several anthropogenic factors as well as environmental stressors concurred to make this ecosystem ideal for invasion. Given the zooplankton ecological relevance related to the role in the marine trophic network, changes in the community have implications for environmental management and ecosystem services. This work aims to depict the relevant steps of the history of invasion of the copepod Acartia tonsa in the Venice lagoon, providing a recent picture of its distribution, mainly compared to congeneric residents. In this work, four datasets of mesozooplankton were examined. The four datasets covered a period from 1975 to 2017 and were used to investigate temporal trends as well as the changes in coexistence patterns among the Acartia species before and after A. tonsa settlement. Spatial distribution of A. tonsa was found to be significantly associated with temperature, phytoplankton...
The Lagoon of Venice covers a surface area of about 550 km2, roughly 80% of which is covered by w... more The Lagoon of Venice covers a surface area of about 550 km2, roughly 80% of which is covered by water, about 10% by salt marshes and 5% by islands. The mean depth of the water column is about 1.2 m, with only 5% of the lagoon deeper than 5 m. It is connected to the Adriatic Sea through three inlets (Lido, Malamocco, Chioggia), which allow tidal flushing twice a day. The mean tidal range is 61 cm (calculated on 1986-2004), the largest in the Mediterranean. The majority of the lagoon can be classified as mixoeuhaline/mixopolyhaline according to the "Venice System" (Anonymous, 1959), with a mean salinity of about 30, ranging from marine (around 37), to mesohaline (5 – 18) near the bay-head river mouths (Zirino et al., 2014). Because of the shallowness of the lagoon, water temperature follows the seasonal trends of air temperature, with very low values during winter, although seldom freezing, to above 30°C during summer. From the biological point of view, the benthic communiti...
The Northern Adriatic Sea is the northernmost basin of the Mediterranean Sea and one of its most ... more The Northern Adriatic Sea is the northernmost basin of the Mediterranean Sea and one of its most productive areas, characterized by a shallow depth and by a dominant cyclonic circulation. The oceanographic and meteorological parameters show a marked seasonal and interannual variability. The major forcings of the system are represented by the significant river inputs along the Italian coast, by the Eastern Adriatic Current-EAC, which brings high salinity and oligotrophic waters from the southern basin, and by the notable sea-level range, relatively to the Mediterranean area. The NAS is subject to multiple anthropogenic impacts, e.g.: nutrient inputs, coastal urbanization, fishing activity, tourism, and maritime trade. The basin has undergone marked eutrophication followed by a phase of oligotrophication and then by a recent increase in nutrient concentrations. The NAS has also been subjected to frequent development of mucilage aggregates until the first decade of the 2000s. The LTER-...
Due to its potentially severe impacts on the functioning of the marine systems, the interest in u... more Due to its potentially severe impacts on the functioning of the marine systems, the interest in understanding the ecology of invasive zooplanktivorous comb jellyfish Mnemiopsis leidyi has increased in the last decades, especially after its bloom in the Black and Caspian Sea in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the last decade, M. leidyi has colonized most of the Mediterranean Sea, including the Adriatic Sea, and in 2016 it was firstly recorded in the Venice Lagoon (Malej et al., 2017). The impact Mnemiopsis could have especially in the Venice Lagoon as a semi-enclosed ecosystem is of concern, as it is an important nursery and foraging area for several fish species as well as an area of mussel, clam, and crab fishery and aquaculture. While in the past, to study Mnemiopsis feeding preferences, the gut content was mainly analyzed by morphological identification, this is the first study investigating the in-situ gut contents of this species utilizing DNA metabarcoding, as it overcomes ...
Articles CoCoNet: towards coast to coast networks of marine protected areas (from the shore to th... more Articles CoCoNet: towards coast to coast networks of marine protected areas (from the shore to the high and deep sea), coupled with sea-based wind energy potential
The present database contains observations for 22 parameters of abiotic, phyto and zooplankton da... more The present database contains observations for 22 parameters of abiotic, phyto and zooplankton data collected in the Northern Adriatic Sea region (Italy). It relies on a Comma Separated Values file and it is composed by 108687 records. Due to its long temporal coverage, it is classifiable as Long Term Ecological data. Due to the long temporal coverage, the great part of parameters changed collection and analysis method in time. These variations are reported in the database. A long term database can be useful for multiple purposes. This database has been released under a research project focused on Open Science principles application to marine ecology, it is also deposited in B2Share repository (https://b2share.fz-juelich.de/records/f772ed02dcd1403a86fac5a6a19005ef) and metadata are available in DEIMS-SDR (Dynamic Ecological Information Management System - Site and dataset registry, https://deims.org/dataset/38d604ef-decb-4d67-8ac3-cc843d10d3ef). A datapaper, discussing methods, resu...
The Venice lagoon (VL) has been recognized as a hot spot of introduction of non-indigenous specie... more The Venice lagoon (VL) has been recognized as a hot spot of introduction of non-indigenous species (NIS), due to several anthropogenic factors and environmental stressors that combined may facilitate NIS invasions. In the last decades an increasing number of zooplankton NIS have been observed in the VL. This work aims to provide a picture of the annual cycle and distribution of the recently recorded non-indigenous copepod Oithona davisae, considering the coexistence patterns with the congeneric resident Oithona nana. Therefore, zooplankton samplings were carried out monthly from August 2016 to July 2017 at five Long-Term Ecological Research LTER stations in the VL. Oithona davisae showed a persistent occurrence throughout the year with the highest abundances in the warm season and in the inner areas, while the congeneric O. nana, showing a different distribution pattern, resulted more abundant near the inlets of the Lagoon, where O. davisae reached the minimum density. Oithona davis...
As DNA metabarcoding has become an emerging tool for surveying biodiversity, including its applic... more As DNA metabarcoding has become an emerging tool for surveying biodiversity, including its application in legally binding assessments, reliable and efficient barcodes are requested, especially for the highly diverse group of zooplankton. This study focuses on comparing the efficiency of two mitochondrial COI barcodes based on the internal primers mlCOIintF and mlCOIintR utilizing mesozooplankton samples collected in a Mediterranean lagoon. Our results indicate that after a slight adjustment, the mlCOIintR primer performs in combination with jdgLCO1490 (herein) very comparably to the much more widely used primer system mlCOIintF/jgHCO2198+dgHCO2198, in terms of level of taxonomic resolution, species detection and their relative abundance in terms of numbers of reads. As for some groups, like Ctenophora, this barcode is not suitable; a combination of them may be the best option to rely on the Folmer region in its entirety without the risk of losing information for a limited primer match.
Local biodiversity trends over time are likely to be decoupled from global trends, as local proce... more Local biodiversity trends over time are likely to be decoupled from global trends, as local processes may compensate or counteract global change. We analyze 161 long-term biological time series (15–91 years) collected across Europe, using a comprehensive dataset comprising ~6,200 marine, freshwater and terrestrial taxa. We test whether (i) local long-term biodiversity trends are consistent among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, and (ii) changes in biodiversity correlate with regional climate and local conditions. Our results reveal that local trends of abundance, richness and diversity differ among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, demonstrating that biodiversity changes at local scale are often complex and cannot be easily generalized. However, we find increases in richness and abundance with increasing temperature and naturalness as well as a clear spatial pattern in changes in community composition (i.e. temporal taxonomic turnover) in most biogeoregions of N...
Zooplankton biodiversity assessment is a crucial element in monitoring marine ecosystem processes... more Zooplankton biodiversity assessment is a crucial element in monitoring marine ecosystem processes and community responses to environmental alterations. In order to evaluate the suitability of metabarcoding for zooplankton biodiversity assessment and biomonitoring as a fast and more cost-effective method, seasonal zooplankton sampling was carried out in the Venice Lagoon and the nearby coastal area (Northern Adriatic Sea). The molecular analysis showed higher taxa richness compared to the classical morphological method (224 vs. 88 taxa), discriminating better the meroplanktonic component, morphologically identified only up to order level. Both methods revealed a similar spatio-temporal distribution pattern and the sequence abundances and individual counts were significantly correlated for various taxonomic groups. These results indicate that DNA metabarcoding is an efficient tool for biodiversity assessments in ecosystems with high spatial and temporal variability, where high sampling effort is required as well as fast alert systems for non-native species (NIS).
Abstract Changes in the composition and biomass distribution of deep-living zooplankton over wide... more Abstract Changes in the composition and biomass distribution of deep-living zooplankton over wide gradients of depth (0–1300 m) have been analyzed in the Central Ligurian Basin (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea), seeking the environmental variables responsible for these changes. Spring vertical distribution (early May 2013) and diel vertical migration (DVM) of some key species of macroplankton and micronekton communities were studied every 6 h during a 24 h cycle. The hauls, performed with the multiple opening/closing 230 µm BIONESS net system, made possible a detailed description of the vertical distribution of twenty-three species: one siphonophore, one pyrosomid, one salp, three pteropods, four amphipods, one mysid, eight euphausiids, two decapods, two fishes. Cluster analysis performed on major species of macroplankton and micronekton community assemblage mainly highlighted the presence of four well defined assemblages, based on the depth range in the water column: 0–60 m, 60–100 m, 100–600 m and from 600 to 1300 m. During daytime, vertical distributions of biomass exhibited similar profiles, with maxima in the 0–60 m layer. Highest abundances were recorded between 20–40 and 40–60 m depth, at midnight and in the morning. The highest values of both biodiversity and number of species were found in a deeper layer comprised between 400 and 600 m. Most of the species showed similar distributions throughout the sampled area, either with typical non-diel-migrating characters such as the euphausiid Stylocheiron longicorne and the fishes Cyclothone braueri and C. pygmaea, or with clear diel-migrant behaviour (e.g. the siphonophore Chelophyes appendiculata and the euphausiid Euphausia krohni). Some species (e.g. Vibilia armata, Phronima sedentaria, Scina crassicornis, Salpa fusiformis, Cavolinia inflexa, Gennadas elegans) exhibited a bimodal vertical distribution that could be attributed to different causes able to influence and modify their vertical migration. The lower values of chlorophylla concentrations found in the present studyinthe month of May corresponds to the transition period from a mesotrophic system to a rather oligotrophic one. Temperature and chlorophyll were the variables that principally influenced the distinction between shallow (0–60 m) and deep communities. Below 60 m depth, the dissolved oxygen and salinity become the most important variables affecting the zooplankton community.
The Lagoon of Venice has been recognized as a hot spot for the introduction of nonindigenous spec... more The Lagoon of Venice has been recognized as a hot spot for the introduction of nonindigenous species. Several anthropogenic factors as well as environmental stressors concurred to make this ecosystem ideal for invasion. Given the zooplankton ecological relevance related to the role in the marine trophic network, changes in the community have implications for environmental management and ecosystem services. This work aims to depict the relevant steps of the history of invasion of the copepod Acartia tonsa in the Venice lagoon, providing a recent picture of its distribution, mainly compared to congeneric residents. In this work, four datasets of mesozooplankton were examined. The four datasets covered a period from 1975 to 2017 and were used to investigate temporal trends as well as the changes in coexistence patterns among the Acartia species before and after A. tonsa settlement. Spatial distribution of A. tonsa was found to be significantly associated with temperature, phytoplankton...
Uploads
Papers by Marco Pansera