Persistent Digital Identifiers (UIDs)
ORCID :
0000 0002 1519 1677
Subject Area
Biological Oceanography, Marine Ecology
Sea regions of study
Mediterranean Sea - Western Basin
North Atlantic Ocean
Skills
I’m a
marine ecologists with research experience across a wide range of topics,
habitats and organisms. My main interest, however, is in assessing the effects
of natural and anthropogenic perturbations on marine coastal systems. My
research approach is built on a solid basis in experimental design and
statistical analysis of data aimed at testing hypotheses on patterns of distribution
of coastal assemblages, on their driving processes, and on how these are
modulated by human disturbances acting on multiple spatial and temporal scales.
My recent research is focused, in particular, on patterns of distribution of
algal and invertebrate benthic assemblages from temperate habitats in the
Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and
on how they are shaped by processes such as human harvesting of target species,
coastal urbanization and contamination, and environmental variables directly or
indirectly affected by climate change. These variables include mechanical disturbance associated with extreme storms, nutrient inputs, warming
and acidification, the effects of which are often examined in terms of
variation of both mean intensity and temporal variance. Such activities are
developed in the context of some of the main research themes of the current
ecological research worldwide, including the assessment of the responses of
marine species and assemblages to global change, the understanding of BEF (biodiversity-ecosystem
functioning) relationships, the analysis of the success and ecological effects
of invasive species, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of marine
protected areas.
