Nicoletta Cadoni's scientific contributions

... comm.). This attitude is consistent with the principles for ethical wildlife control [97,164], although the presence of several dozen hunters taking part in periodical beats in the core area of a National Park is still questionable from an ethical point of view. ...

... Despite that branched forms predominate in all stations, we observed small-scale heterogeneity in the proportions of growth forms and of morphotypes. The heterogeneity observed agrees with previous studies in the Mediterranean (i.e., Bracchi et al. 2022) and particularly in the Menorca Channel (Farriols et al. 2022). In general, the proportion of branched growth forms, and particularly the proportion of morphotype A, was highest in the Core Habitat. ...

... In the coastal regions of Sicily and within the Strait of Sicily, it is easy to observe specimens of Caretta caretta, the most prevalent sea turtle species of the Mediterranean Sea. This particular species favours the sandy shores of the island (i.e south-eastern Sicily and the Pelagie islands) for nesting and laying its eggs [11,12]. ...

... Yet, it is still unknown where these females forage, whether they stay close to the coasts where they nest, return to the habitual neritic foraging areas in the eastern basin, or wander off to the open sea. Recent findings of satellite tracking studies revealed that some adult-sized loggerhead turtles indeed forage in the Tyrrhenian Sea, far away from the coasts (Luschi et al., 2018;Chimienti et al., 2020), where they are also exposed to floating marine litter (Arcangeli et al., 2019;Atzori et al., 2021). As for other ocean basins, it has been shown for the Mediterranean that loggerhead turtles spanning a wide range of sizes and foraging habitats, both neritic and oceanic, ingest marine litter items, which are abundant in all marine areas (Matiddi et al., 2017). ...

... The red gorgonian Paramuricea clavata (Risso, 1827) (Cnidaria: Anthozoa) is among the main habitat-forming species in the Mediterranean circalittoral zone, and its aggregations are known to heavily influence the diversity and structure of the associated assemblage [1][2][3]. P. clavata forests constitute noteworthy seascapes attracting broad fluxes of SCUBA diving tourism, thus resulting in an important economic resource [4,5]. Moreover, they host significant populations of commercial fish such as the common dentex Dentex dentex (Linnaeus, 1758) and the dusky grouper Epinephelus marginatus (Lowe, 1834), typical targets of artisanal fishing [6]. ...

... In fact, the taxa identified in the two assemblages were nearly the same, although the recruited assemblages were dominated by quick-growing species such as Sphacelaria spp., while the mature assemblages on untouched thalli were mostly characterised by slow-growing forms such as Peyssonnelia spp., Halimeda tuna and Flabellia petiolata, supporting the theory that algal succession occurs CCA epibiota (Piazzi et al., 2011). Regarding the presence of introduced species, the Rhodophyta Womersleyella setacea was more abundant on recruited than in mature assemblages, suggesting that mature assemblages may control the spread of this species probably through competitive interactions (Piazzi et al., 2021a) and, on the contrary, the lack of a complex assemblage may enhance the spread of opportunistic fast-growing introduced species. In addition, invasive species such as W. setacea were found more abundant in the warmer site (i.e. ...

... in some of them, other pathogens or opportunist microorganisms were detected [11][12][13] like Mycobacterium spp. and Vibrio spp. ...

... The first pressure is related to the recent increase of positive thermal anomalies causing cascade effects such as the development of pathogenic bacteria and blooms of filamentous algae and mucilage. In turn, these phenomena affect the gorgonians with extensive diseases that favour the settling of invertebrate epibionts on the damaged colonies [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Marine Heat Waves (MHWs) also result in Mass Mortality Events (MMEs) that have been well-described for many organisms of the coralligenous assemblage [11,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23], but mainly hit the red gorgonians [24][25][26][27]. ...

... The result of the calculation of ALEX, a new and recently applied biotic index in the western and central Mediterranean basin (Piazzi et al., 2015(Piazzi et al., , 2018Mangano et al., 2019) and applied here for the first time on a macrofaunal community in the Marchica lagoon in the western Mediterranean basin, showing that generally the environmental status of benthic habitats varies from unaffected to slightly affected. This index also showed a significant correlation with depth, vegetation biomass and CaCO 3 . ...

... However, the spread of A. saligna is a threat to the survival of coastal shrubs of Juniperus macrocarpa in the study area, since it reduces the distribution of residual patches of EU habitat 2250*, especially given that this habitat is here at the northern limit of its geographical range along the Adriatic coast of Italy (Stanisci et al. 2014). A similar ecological impact on EU habitat 2250* was recorded in Sardinia (Celesti-Grapow et al. 2009, 2010a, 2010bPodda et al. 2011;Meloni et al. 2013), where a strong decrease of its distribution range and modifications of the dune ecosystem structure were assessed (Acunto et al. 2017). ...