Nowadays, emerging technologies, such as long-range transmitters, increasingly miniaturized components for positioning, and enhanced imaging sensors, have led to an upsurge in the availability of new ecological applications for remote sensing based on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), sometimes referred to as “drones”. In fact, structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry coupled with imagery acquired by UAVs offers a rapid and inexpensive tool to produce high-resolution orthomosaics, giving ecologists a new way for responsive, timely, and cost-effective monitoring of ecological processes. Here, we adopted a lightweight quadcopter as an aerial survey tool and object-based image analysis (OBIA) workflow to demonstrate the strength of such methods in producing very high spatial resolution maps of sensitive marine habitats. Therefore, three different coastal environments were mapped using the autonomous flight capability of a lightweight UAV equipped with a fully stabilized consumer-grade RGB digital camera. In particular we investigated a Posidonia oceanica seagrass meadow, a rocky coast with nurseries for juvenile fish, and two sandy areas showing biogenic reefs of Sabelleria alveolata. We adopted, for the first time, UAV-based raster thematic maps of these key coastal habitats, produced after OBIA classification, as a new method for fine-scale, low-cost, and time saving characterization of sensitive marine environments which may lead to a more effective and efficient monitoring and management of natural resources.

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Periodic assessments of population status and trends to detect natural influences and human effects on coastal dolphin are often limited by lack of baseline information. Here, we investigated for the first time the site-fidelity patterns and estimated the population size of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) at the Tiber River estuary (central Mediterranean, Tyrrhenian Sea, Rome, Italy) between 2017 and 2020. We used photo-identification data and site-fidelity metrics to study the tendency of dolphins to remain in, or return to, the study area, and capture–recapture models to estimate the population abundance. In all, 347 unique individuals were identified. The hierarchical cluster analysis highlighted 3 clusters, labeled resident (individuals encountered at least five times, in three different months, over three distinct years; n = 42), part-time (individuals encountered at least on two occasions in a month, in at least two different years; n = 73), and transient (individuals encountered on more than one occasion, in more than 1 month, none of them in more than 1 year; n = 232), each characterized by site-fidelity metrics. Open POPAN modeling estimated a population size of 529 individuals (95% CI: 456–614), showing that the Capitoline (Roman) coastal area and nearby regions surrounding the Tiber River estuary represent an important, suitable habitat for bottlenose dolphins, despite their proximity to one of the major urban centers in the world (the city of Rome). Given the high number of individuals in the area and the presence of resident individuals with strong site fidelity, we suggest that conservation plans should not be focused only close to the Tiber River mouths but extended to cover a broader scale of area.

Polyoxometalates (POMs) are multi metallic and polyanionic oxides whose functionalization with organic moieties can generate new properties. Among possible strategies to generate molecular diversity and find applications in different fields, the postfunctionalization of a POM with peptides is particularly interesting and easily achievable. In this article, we present the functionalization of the Anderson‐Evans polyoxomolybdate ([MnMo6O24]3–) with a Bombesin antagonist peptide, to highlight the interplay between these 2 domains, in terms of structural changes and assembly. Moreover, since Bombesin analogs show a marked binding affinity and specificity for some subtypes of the Gastrin Releasing Peptide Receptor (GRP‐R), the impact of the peptide on the antitumor activity of the Anderson‐Evans polyoxomolybdate POM has been explored.

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Timing, microhabitat selection and behavior from the onset of settlement to recruitment to the adult population of juvenile fishes of the genus Diplodus (Pisces: Sparidae) were investigated along a rocky coastline in the Central Mediterranean Sea. The settlement periods in Diplodus sargus and Diplodus annularis were concentrated in spring, between late May and early June, and the recruits leave the nursery grounds in late September–October. Juvenile fishes of Diplodus puntazzo and Diplodus vulgaris showed a partial time overlapping, sharing the same zones in winter and early spring, from February to May. Multiple correspondence analysis showed that sea breams settle in well‐defined habitats. The smallest juveniles of D. sargus and D. puntazzo settled primarily in the shallowest sheltered pebbly areas, located in sciaphilous crannies covered by red algae. Diplodus vulgaris settlers were observed on a wider range of substrata: rock on sand, gravel and pebbles without algal cover or large boulders, generally in deeper waters. The intermediate‐size juveniles of D. sargus, D. puntazzo and D. vulgaris showed a preference for rocky substrata with substantial algal cover, with arborescent structures (Phaeophyceae). Diplodus annularis juveniles showed high fidelity to seagrass beds (Posidonia oceanica). The home range increased over time in all species, highlighting a loss of substrate specificity: larger juveniles were even observed in deeper and different microhabitats outside nursery grounds. This study suggests that shallow infra‐littoral rocky communities with photophilic algae play a key role in recruitment of sparid fishes, affecting the distribution and abundance of juvenile fishes and therefore determining the renewal of populations and the structure of adult assemblages.

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Presence-only data are typical occurrence information used in species distribution modelling. Data may be originated from different sources, and their integration is a challenging exercise in spatial ecology as detection biases are rarely fully considered. We propose a new protocol for presence-only data fusion, where information sources include social media platforms, to investigate several possible solutions to reduce uncertainty in the modelling outputs. As a case study, we use spatial data on two dolphin species with different ecological characteristics and distribution, collected in central Tyrrhenian through traditional research campaigns and derived from a careful selection of social media images and videos. We built a spatial log-Gaussian cox process that incorporates different detection functions and thinning for each data source. To finalize the model in a Bayesian framework, we specified priors for all model parameters. We used slightly informative priors to avoid identifiability issues when estimating both the animal intensity and the observation process. We compared different types of detection function and accessibility explanations. We showed how the detection function's variation affects ecological findings on two species representatives for different habitats and with different spatial distribution. Our findings allow for a sound understanding of the species distribution in the study area, confirming the proposed approach's appropriateness. Besides, the straightforward implementation in the R software, and the provision of examples' code with simulated data, consistently facilitate broader applicability of the method and allow for further validations. The proposed approach is widely functional and can be considered with different species and ecological contexts.