Coralligenous reefs are characterized by large bathymetric and spatial distribution, as well as heterogeneity; in shallow environments, they develop mainly on vertical and sub-vertical rocky walls. Mainly diver-based techniques are carried out to gain detailed information on such habitats. Here, we propose a non-destructive and multi-purpose photo mosaicking method to study and monitor coralligenous reefs developing on vertica...

The Costa Concordia cruise-ship disaster occurred just off the coast of Italy on January 13th, 2012, and entailed the largest marine salvage operation in history. The salvage employed vessels from different European harbours, providing an unexpected means for transporting alien species into the Mediterranean. In this work we identified mussel species using fragments length polymorphism of a nuclear locus and report the first e...

The genus Plesionika is represented in the Mediterranean Sea by eight species, six of which,Plesionikaacanthonotus, P. antigai, P. edwardsii, P. gigliolii, P. heterocarpus and P. martia, are very common on muddy bottoms of the continental slope. During nine experimental trawl surveys a total of 29,038 individuals of these six pandalid species, was collected off the central western coasts of Italy (central Mediterranean) in ord...