Genetic and morphological variation and differentiation of Raja clavata populations in the European seas: marker development and preliminary data

In this study the population structure and connectivity of the Mediterranean and Atlantic Raja clavata (L., 1758) were investigated by analyzing the genetic variation of six population samples (N = 144) at seven nuclear microsatellite loci. The genetic dataset was generated by selecting population samples available in the tissue databases of the GenoDREAM laboratory (University of Bologna) and of the Department of Life Sciences and Environment (University of Cagliari), all collected during past scientific surveys (MEDITS, GRUND) from different geographical locations in the Mediterranean basin and North-east Atlantic sea, as North Sea, Sardinian coasts, Tuscany coasts and Cyprus Island. This thesis deals with to estimate the genetic diversity and differentiation among 6 geographical samples, in particular, to assess the presence of any barrier (geographic, hydrogeological or biological) to gene flow evaluating both the genetic diversity (nucleotide diversity, observed and expected heterozygosity, Hardy- Weinberg equilibrium analysis) and population differentiation (Fst estimates, population structure analysis). In addition to molecular analysis, quantitative representation and statistical analysis of morphological individuals shape are performed using geometric morphometrics methods and statistical tests. Geometric coordinates call landmarks are fixed in 158 individuals belonging to two population samples of Raja clavata and in population samples of closely related species, Raja straeleni (cryptic sibling) and Raja asterias, to assess significant morphological differences at multiple taxonomic levels. The results obtained from the analysis of the microsatellite dataset suggested a geographic and genetic separation between populations from Central-Western and Eastern Mediterranean basins. Furthermore, the analysis also showed that there was no separation between geographic samples from North Atlantic Ocean and central-Western Mediterranean, grouping them to a panmictic population. The Landmark-based geometric morphometry method results showed significant differences of body shape able to discriminate taxa at tested levels (from species to populations).

De-authoring or Authoring?: A plunge into the question of authorship and language in J.M. Coetzee's Foe

J. M. Coetzee's Foe is not only a post-colonial novel, but it is also a re-writing of a classic, and its main themes are language, authorship, power and identity. Moreover, Foe is narrated by a woman, while written by a male, Nobel prize winning South African author. The aim of my tesina is to focus on the question of authorship and the role of language in Foe. Without any claim to be exhaustive, in the first section I will examine some selected extracts of Coetzee's book, in order to provide an analysis of the novel. These quotations will mainly be its metalinguistic parts and will be analysed in the “theory” sections of my work, relying on literary theory and on previous works on the novel. Among others, I will cover themes such as the relationship between speech and writing, the connection between writing, history, and memory, the role of silence and alternative ways of communicating and the relationship between literary authority and truth. These arguments will be the foundation for my second section, in which I will attempt to shed a light on the importance of the novel from a linguistic point of view, but always keeping an eye on the implication that this has on authorship. While it is true that it is less politically-permeated than Coetzee's previous works, Foe is above all a “journey of discovery” in the world of language and authorship. In fact, it becomes a warning for any person immersed in the ocean of language since, while everyone naturally tends to trust speech and writing as the only medium through which one can get closer to the truth, authority never is a synonym of reliability, and language is a system of communication behind which structures of power, misconceptions, lies, and treacherous tides easily hide.