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Monitoring and assessment of the ecological status of coralligenous cliffs by a standardized protocol

  • Paola Gennaro
  • Luigi Piazzi
  • Enrico Cecchi
  • Carla Morri
  • Carlo Nike Bianchi
  • Monica Montefalcone

Coralligenous reefs are the main biogenic construction of the Mediterranean Sea and one of the most sensitive habitats for which European legislation requires monitoring and quality assessment plans. The heterogeneity of reefs however requires the use of standardized habitat-specific methods allowing comparability of data over wide scale. Coralligenous cliffs are the reef type most widespread in shallow waters and are monitored by several ecological indices based on different approaches. This contribution summarizes the results of multi-year studies carried out on wide spatial scale with the aim of comparing and integrating the different methods into a single standardized sampling and data collection protocol. Downstream of a literature review, the STAndaRdized coralligenous evaluation procedure (STAR) was proposed and tested on subregion scale under different human pressures. Results confirmed the validity of descriptors chosen and the effectiveness of the protocol in assessing the ecological quality of coralligenous cliffs. STAR represents the first methodological guidelines proposed for the evaluation of the ecological quality of coralligenous cliffs in the Mediterranean Sea

  • Keywords:
  • Biogenic construction,
  • Ecological quality,
  • Evaluation,
  • Guidelines,
  • Mediterranean Sea,
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Paola Gennaro

ISPRA - Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-4569-8209

Luigi Piazzi

University of Sassari, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0003-3061-0187

Enrico Cecchi

ARPAT, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-8910-891X

Carla Morri

Institute of Marine Biology, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0003-4520-2741

Carlo Nike Bianchi

Institute of Marine Biology, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0003-1071-3285

Monica Montefalcone

University of Genoa, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-3851-1880

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  • Anno di pubblicazione: 2024
  • Pagine: 228-239

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  • Anno di pubblicazione: 2024

Informazioni sul capitolo

Titolo del capitolo

Monitoring and assessment of the ecological status of coralligenous cliffs by a standardized protocol

Autori

Paola Gennaro, Luigi Piazzi, Enrico Cecchi, Carla Morri, Carlo Nike Bianchi, Monica Montefalcone

Lingua

Italian

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0556-6.20

Opera sottoposta a peer review

Anno di pubblicazione

2024

Copyright

© 2024 Author(s)

Licenza d'uso

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Licenza dei metadati

CC0 1.0

Informazioni bibliografiche

Titolo del libro

Tenth International Symposium "Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurement Techniques"

Sottotitolo del libro

Livorno (Italy) 11th-13th June 2024

Curatori

Laura Bonora, Marcantonio Catelani, Matteo De Vincenzi, Giorgio Matteucci

Opera sottoposta a peer review

Anno di pubblicazione

2024

Copyright

© 2024 Author(s)

Licenza d'uso

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Licenza dei metadati

CC0 1.0

Editore

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0556-6

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979-12-215-0556-6

eISBN (xml)

979-12-215-0557-3

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Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurement Techniques

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2975-0288

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