The MOSE (Experimental Electromechanical Module), consisting of rows of mobile gates can temporarily isolate the Venice lagoon from the Adriatic Sea during extreme high tides. To investigate how the lagoon ecosystem is affected by a prolonged segregation from the oxygenating seawater, we performed two enclosure experiments in July 2019 (48h) and October 2020 (28h) by artificially secluding small portions of the organic-enriche...

Sponges are now requested for their commercial, industrial and pharmaceutical importance. This led to an increase in demand in the global markets with uncontrolled and excessive harvesting pressure that, together with diseases outbreaks, put wild populations at risk, with several habitats completely looted. Aquaculture of sponge fragments poses an alternative to wild collection since fragment regeneration is easy, cheap and ef...

Ocean acidification (OA), one of the main climate-change-related stressors linked to increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, is considered an important threat to marine biodiversity and habitats. Studies on CO2-vents systems, naturally acidified environments that mimic future ocean scenarios, help to explore the sensitivity of species and to understand how benthic communities rearrange their structure and functioning u...

“New records of rare species in the Mediterranean Sea” (October 2021)