Assessing the ecological status of Italian lagoons using a biomass-based index

The efficiency of Taxonomic Sufficiency for identification of spatial patterns at different scales in transitional waters

“…Italian coasts there are almost 170 lagoons, but only 30 of them have a surface area bigger than 10 km 2 , and most of them (with some exceptions, like Orbetello Lagoon) are located along the Western Adriatic coasts (Mistri et al, 2018). Notwithstanding the recent proliferation of TS studies, present knowledge is still fragmented, and factors influencing the effectiveness of TS still require a great deal of clarification, in particular in relation to different spatial and temporal scales (Dethier and Schoch, 2006;Smale, 2010;Bevilacqua et al, 2018).…”

The difficulty of disentangling natural from anthropogenic forcing factors makes the evaluation of ecological quality problematic: A case study from Adriatic lagoons

“…A combination of different BQEs and different indices, with a refinement of some existing indices, would be therefore crucial to improve EcoQ classification. Zuur, A., Ieno, E.N., Smith, G.M., 2007 Mistri et al, 2018) response to salinity (present work)…”

“…The difficulties inherent to the complex and dynamic nature of transitional ecosystems urge the need to find alternative approaches for a correct EcoQ assessment. In this view the recently developed biomass-based indices seem promising, providing complementary ecologically relevant information with respect to previous ones, downscaling the effects of over abundant small-bodied organisms (Mistri et al, 2018).…”

“…Reference conditions were those reported by the Italian Act 260/10, for microtidal oligo/meso/polyhaline lagoons (AMBI = 2.14; H' = 3.4; S = 28). The sampling sites were classified according to boundaries required by Italian law for M-AMBI: "High" if > 0.96, "Good" if 0.71 < M-AMBI ≤ 0.96,"Moderate" if 0.57 < M-AMBI ≤ 0.71, "Poor" if 0.46 < M-AMBI ≤ 0.57, and "Bad" if M-AMBI ≤ 0.46, and following Mistri et al (2018) for M-bAMBI: "High" if > 0.930, "Good" if 0.739 < M-AMBI ≤ 0.930,"Moderate" if 0.632 < M-AMBI ≤ 0.739, "Poor" if 0.548 < M-AMBI ≤ 0.632, and "Bad" if M-AMBI ≤ 0.548. The ISD is based on the distribution of individuals across geometric size classes (class I: >0 -<0.2 mg, class II: >=0.2 -<0.4 mg, class III: >=0.4 -< 0.4 mg, ... class XII: >=204.8 -<409.6 mg).…”

A new species of Streblospio (Polychaeta: Spionidae) from the northern Adriatic Sea (Mediterranean Sea)

“…Only two of the known species of the genus Streblospio are reported in the Mediterranean Sea: Streblospio shrubsolii (Lardicci et al 1997;Munari 2013;Çinar et al 2014;Mikac 2015;Bevilacqua et al 2018;Mistri et al 2018), and S. gynobranchiata (Çinar et al 2005a, b, 2006, 2008, 2011a, 2012a, b, 2014Çinar 2013;Çinar & Dagli 2013;Dagli & Çinar 2008;Ergen et al 2006;Kurt-Sahin & Çinar 2012;Zenetos et al 2017), which is also recorded from the Black Sea (Radashevsky & Selifonova 2013, Boltachova et al 2015Selifonova & Bartsits 2018) and Caspian Sea (Taheri et al 2009;Taheri & Foshtomi 2011;Ghasemi et al 2014). In the present study we describe a new species of the genus Streblospio, Streblospio eridani n. sp.…”