1. Recruitment and controlled growth of juveniles of the critically endangered fan mussel Pinna nobilis in the Northern AdriaticValentina Pitacco, Domen Trkov, Daniela Caracciolo, Saul Ciriaco, Marco Segarich, Edoardo Batistini, Martina Orlando-Bonaca, Lovrenc Lipej, Borut Mavrič, Manja Rogelja, Ilenia Azzena, Chiara Locci, Fabio Scarpa, Daria Sanna, Marco Casu, Chiara Manfrin, Alberto Pallavicini, Ana Fortič, 2025, original scientific article Abstract: The fan mussel Pinna nobilis is the largest bivalve species in the Mediterranean Sea and provides numerous ecosystem services. It is classified as critically endangered by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) due to severe mass mortality events throughout the Mediterranean. The aims of this work are as follows: (i) to assess the current recruitment potential of the species, (ii) to enhance recruitment by keeping juveniles in controlled conditions before releasing them back into the sea, and (iii) to assess the health status of recruits. In the period 2022–2023, larval collectors were set up in the Gulf of Trieste as part of the LIFE Pinna project. The collected individuals were kept in aquaria in two different facilities under different conditions: (a) a closed system with constant water temperature, live phytoplankton, and commercial food and (b) an open system with ambient seawater temperature and commercial food. A clear temporal and spatial variability in recruitment was observed: 13 recruits were found in 2022 and 50 recruits in 2023. The live specimens were between 0.5 and 8 cm in size upon collection and larger in 2023. The growth and survival rate did not differ significantly between the two systems, but the average monthly growth and survival rate were related to the initial size of the juveniles.
Keywords: pen shell, ex situ maintenance, in situ maintenance, Haplosporidium pinnae, Mycobacterium, conservation, marine biology
Published in DiRROS: 08.10.2025; Views: 375; Downloads: 170
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2. A significantly enhanced role for plant genetic resource centres in linking in situ and ex situ conservation to aid user germplasm accessNigel Maxted, Anne-Françoise Adam-Blondon, Catherine Hazel Aquilar, Ana Maria Barata, Béla Bartha, Riccardo Bocci, Domenica De Paola, Heli Susanna Fitzgerald, Louis John Fresta, Pietro Fusani, Jelka Šuštar Vozlič, 2025, review article Keywords: crop wild relatives, ex situ, genebank, genetic reserves, in situ, landraces, on-farm conservation, integrated conservation
Published in DiRROS: 14.05.2025; Views: 767; Downloads: 196
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3. Marginality indices for biodiversity conservation in forest treesNicolas Picard, Maurizio Marchi, Maria Jesus Serra-Varela, Marjana Westergren, Stephen Cavers, Eduardo Notivol, Andrea Piotti, Paraskevi Alizoti, Michele Bozzano, Santiago C. González-Martínez, 2022, original scientific article Abstract: Marginal and peripheral populations are important for biodiversity conservation. Their original situation in a species’ geographic and ecological space often confers them genetic diversity and traits of high adaptive value. Yet theoretical hypotheses related to marginality are difficult to test because of confounding factors that influence marginality, namely environment, geography, and history. There is an urgent need to develop metrics to disentangle these confounding factors. We designed nine quantitative indices of marginality and peripherality that define where margins lie within species distributions, from a geographical, an environmental and a historical perspective. Using the distribution maps of eight European forest tree species, we assessed whether these indices were idiosyncratic or whether they conveyed redundant information. Using a database on marginal and peripheral populations based on expert knowledge, we assessed the capacity of the indices to predict the marginality status of a population. There was no consistent pattern of correlation between indices across species, confirming that the indices conveyed different information related to the specific geometry of the species distributions. Contrasting with this heterogeneity of correlation patterns across species, the relative importance of the indices to predict the marginality status of populations was consistent across species. However, there was still a significant country effect in the marginality status, showing a variation in expert opinion of marginality vis-á-vis the species distribution. The marginality indices that we developed are entirely based on distribution maps and can be used for any species. They pave the way for testing hypotheses related to marginality and peripherality, with important implications in quantitative ecology, genetics, and biodiversity conservation.
Keywords: centre-periphery hypothesis, environmental indices, geographical indices, migration indices, marginal populations, peripheral populations, in situ genetic conservation
Published in DiRROS: 07.04.2025; Views: 627; Downloads: 372
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4. European genetic resources conservation in a rapidly changing world : three existential challenges for the crop, forest and animal domains in the 21st centuryFrançois Lefévre, Danijela Bojkovski, Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat, Michele Bozzano, Eléonore Charvolin-Lemaire, Sipke Joost Hiemstra, Hojka Kraigher, Denis Laloë, Gwendal Restoux, Suzanne Sharrock, Enrico Sturaro, Theo J. L. van Hintum, Marjana Westergren, Nigel Maxted, 2024, original scientific article Abstract: Even though genetic resources represent a fundamental reservoir of options to achieve sustainable development goals in a changing world, they are overlooked in the policy agenda and severely threatened. The conservation of genetic resources relies on complementary in situ and ex situ approaches appropriately designed for each type of organism. Environmental and socioeconomic changes raise new challenges and opportunities for sustainable use and conservation of genetic resources. Aiming at a more integrated and adaptive approach, European scientists and genetic resources managers with long experience in the agricultural crop, animal and forestry domains joined their expertise to address three critical challenges: (1) how to adapt genetic resources conservation strategies to climate change, (2) how to promote in situ conservation strategies and (3) how can genetic resources conservation contribute to and benefit from agroecological systems. We present here 31 evidence-based statements and 88 key recommendations elaborated around these questions for policymakers, conservation actors and the scientific community. We anticipate that stakeholders in other genetic resources domains and biodiversity conservation actors across the globe will have interest in these crosscutting and multi-actor recommendations, which support several biodiversity conservation policies and practices.
Keywords: agroecology, climate change, in situ conservation, multi-actor engagement, policy
Published in DiRROS: 11.03.2024; Views: 1655; Downloads: 740
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