A first survey on the status of the Posidonia oceanica meadow in Calpe Bay (Alicante, Spain).

Posidonia oceanica, endemic seagrass of the Mediterranean Sea, forms extensive meadows. It is included among the Mediterranean protected habitats by the Habitat Directive (92/43/EEC). P. oceanica meadows are exposed to anthropogenic impacts that are more evident in areas close to cities, ports or areas with a large coastal tourism development. Mean exponential decline rate of 5 % yr-1 is estimated for the Spanish meadows. If this trend is maintained, most of the meadows are predicted to halve in shoot density over the next 20 years. The meadows regression can give way to a new regime, which supposes the loss of the multiple services that the meadows provided. It is necessary to recognize situations of stress in time, before irreversible damages and changes towards alternative regimes are evident. This study has been carried out in Calpe Bay, Alicante (Spain), during May and June 2017, with the aim of assessing, for the first time, the status of the P. oceanica meadows providing a baseline data for the future monitoring scheme. The features and status of the seagrass beds have been assessed by physical, physiographical, structural and functional descriptors. The results showed that the health status classification of P. oceanica meadows in Calpe Bay vary between “equilibrium” and “disturbed”. The “disturbed” conditions were observed in a shaded area where it is probably due to the low solar radiance. In a lower limit in a shallow meadow, where it could be due to the combined effect of substrate structure and hydrodynamic regime. Finally in a touristic area where patchy impacts could be attributed to direct human disturbance (e.g. anchoring). Overall the status of P. oceanica meadows in Calpe bay is not worrying. However, it is important to develop monitoring plans to assess the dynamics of the seagrass detecting any early decline symptom in order to act, as soon as possible because, when a regression of a meadow is produced, it could not be recovered at human scales.

Citizen science as a tool for the environmental quality assessment of the Mediterranean coastal habitats

The growing need to assess the environmental status of the Mediterranean coastal marine habitats and the large availability of data collected by Reef Check Italia onlus (RCI) volunteers suggest the possibility to develop innovative and reliable indices that may support decision makers in applying conservation strategies. The aims of this study were to check the reliability of data collected by RCI volunteers, analyse the spatial and temporal distribution of RCI available data, resume the knowledge on the biology and ecology of the monitored species, and develop innovative indices to asses the ecological quality of Mediterranean subtidal rocky shores and coralligenous habitats. Subtidal rocky shores and coralligenous were chosen because these are the habitats more attractive for divers; therefore mlst data are referring to them, moreover subtidal rocky bottom are strongly affected by coastal urbanisation, land use, fishing and tourist activities, that increase pollution, turbidity and sedimentation. Non-indigenous species (NIS) have been recognized as a major threat to the integrity of Mediterranean native communities because of their proliferation, spread and impact on resident communities. Monitoring of NIS’ spreading dynamics at the basin spatial scale is difficult but urgent. According to a field test, the training provided by RCI appears adequate to obtain reliable data by volunteers. Based on data collected by RCI volunteers, three main categories of indices were developed: indices based on species diversity, indices on the occurrence non-indigenous species, and indices on species sensitive toward physical, chemical and biological disturbances. As case studies, indices were applied to stretches of coastline defined according to management criteria (province territories and marine protected areas). The assessments of ecological quality in the Tavolara Marine Protected Area using the species sensitivities index were consisten with those previously obtained with traditional methods.

Study on health status and remediation potential of Phragmites australis employed in an Emilia Romagna (IT) Constructed Wetland to assess zonal variability of the facility.

Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud. is a hydrophyte particularly resistant to harsh conditions, e.g. drought, high salinity, contaminants, such as heavy metals and toxic molecules, and high nutrients concentrations. These resistances render the plant suitable for water depuration, where its particular metabolism is exploited to remove pollutants and excessive nutrients from the environment. In constructed wetlands, this principle is applied to phyto-purify wastewater with various origins, such as industrial, agricultural and household, with the aim to improve its quality to an extent which would render its reuse possible. In the framework of a pre-existing project of Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences (DiSTAl), this work integrates the knowledge and data relative to an Emilia Romagna (IT) constructed wetland plant, in order to expand the knowledge about this particular facility and of the system in general. By assaying antioxidants, both non- enzymatic and enzymatic, chlorophylls content and net photosynthetic rates, and by measuring the elemental composition of the specimens, the health status and the elemental uptake of the wetland plants sampled in different areas were investigated. The results were compared amongst the examined specimens with the aim to detect areas where there may be a higher stress due to a different wastewater composition, potentially varying along the constructed route. In addition, different parameters regarding the extraction and assay protocols were investigated, in order to optimise the procedure and to select the best conditions to perform the analyses, as well as to integrate information missing in literature or found as contradictory.