Aquatic Ecology Lab - Pavia

22/06/2026

This spring we had a lot of graduations on many different topics!

Let's celebrate these amazing students who presented their thesis on:

👽Ingrid, Mauro and Irene: manipulative experiments on biofouling communities in ports
🦭Federica: bioacoustic survey and detection of the monk seal in Montecristo
🐬Giulia: whale watching campaigns in the Po river Delta with TAO (Turtles of the Adriatic Organization)
🐢Andrea: seaturtle nests conservation practices with tartAmare
🔍Omar and Sara: freshwater macrozoobenthos in Pavia
🔬Matilde: microplastics survey in Varese lake with CNR Istituto di Ricerca Sulle Acque

Università degli studi di Pavia

14/06/2026

🌊 The Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme on 'Marine Environmental Threats' (MET-BIP) has officially wrapped up its latest (4th) edition!

This intensive program brought together students and researchers from many countries to tackle some of the most pressing challenges facing our oceans today.
Here is a summary of the key areas explored.

ONLINE ACTIVITIES:

🐟 Overexploitation of Fishery Resources – Online lectures hosted by the Universidade dos Açores

🧪 Chemical Pollution – Interactive online group activities led by the PiE-UPV/EHU Plentziako Itsas Estazioa / Estación Marina de Plentzia

IN-PRESENCE ACTIVITIES, at Università degli studi di Pavia

🦀 Marine Invasive Species – Practical lab training on alien species identification, featuring insights on the INVASIONS-Investigating NIS in hotspot areas of the Ionian Sea project, the impacts of Rugulopteryx okamurae, and the Project.

🔊 Underwater Sound Pollution – An impact assessment simulation highlighting the Biodiversa+ project.

🔬 Marine Microplastics – Hands-on laboratory training focused on identifying microplastics in marine sediments.

🔆 Climate Change & Ocean Acidification – A collaborative climate simulation workshop.

Beyond the Classroom...
Participants engaged in field monitoring techniques in Camogli, an art-science icebreaker workshop, and a guided educational tour of the Kosmos - Museo di storia naturale.

This successful initiative was endorsed by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO for the second consecutive year as an official UN Ocean Decade event.

🇪🇺 We gratefully thank the Erasmus BIP Office of Univ. Pavia - for providing funding through the + KA131 program.

Collaborations between the 🇮🇹Università degli Studi di Pavia, the 🇵🇹Universidade dos Açores, and the 🇪🇸Universidad del País Vasco continue to demonstrate the power of international academic partnerships in environmental education.

13/06/2026

In this photo, you can see four of the PhD students currently tutored or co-tutored by our professor Agnese Marchini. From left to right:

🇮🇹 Davide Lelong, working in Pavia about AI applicatios for marine mammals detection
🇫🇷 Justine Girardet, working in Toulon, France, on the impact of boating underwater noise on cetaceans
🇨🇭 Federica Rotta, working in Lugano, Switzerland, on lake microplastics pollution
🇬🇷Ioannis Rallis, working in Crete & Zakynthos, Greece, on marine bioinvasions in recreational ports.

Two more are missing in this photo: Salvatore Coco, working on biofouling management, and Federica Soccio, working on bioacoustics of aquatic alien species. ​
We're very proud of this great team of internal and collaborative external PhD students 💪💪💪

13/06/2026

This year the annual conference of the Italian Society for Marine Biology - SIBM Società Italiana di Biologia Marina was held in Rome.
Two recent master graduates of our lab attended the conference:

🔹Federica Soccio presented a work on bioacoustic detection of the monk seal
🔹Mauro Pardiello presented a manipulative experiment on biofouling community transplant
🔸Last but not least, the Emeritus Professor Anna Occhipinti presented an overview of >25 years of studies on marine alien species conducted by SIBM members and generating several important outputs for the international scientific community

07/06/2026

🦞 Protecting Pavia's wetlands, one invasive species at a time.
To celebrate ( ) with the Society For Ecological Restoration (SER), our team launched a citizen science mission!
Alongside a group of students, we headed to a recently restored local wetland to advocate for - and to take action. Together, we successfully removed individuals of the Louisiana red swamp crayfish, a major invasive alien species of EU concern.
Proud to see this initiative come to life as part of the EU Horizon Project.
Thank you to our international students community for making a local difference! 🌍✨

06/06/2026

Welcome (back) in Pavia Ioannis! 🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷
A PhD student of Ιόνιο Πανεπιστήμιο - Ionian University, our friend Ioannis Rallis is here this month to do morpho-identification of samples he collected in Greek marinas of the Ionian sea, in the framework of the project INVASIONS-Investigating NIS in hotspot areas of the Ionian Sea
It's going to be a busy month for Ioannis:
🦠 many samples to analyse,
🥂 many friends to meet,
☕️ and many italian coffees to drink

30/05/2026

📣𝗠𝗔𝗗𝗪 begins today! And this year we're taking part too!

📍 MADW stands for 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗗𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸!, and is an annual, week-long event hosted by the Society For Ecological Restoration (SER), a global non-profit dedicated to healing damaged ecosystems around the world.

🌱 The MADW enables individuals and organizations from across the globe to host and participate in restorative local volunteer events.

🦞In this 2026 edition, our team will organize on June 7th a removal of alien crayfish in a wetland near Pavia

💪Join us and help us making a difference!

Università degli studi di Pavia Scienze della Natura a Pavia La Provincia pavese Comune di Pavia

Join the University of Pavia and the GuardIAS Project to help control red swamp crayfish in a recently restored wetland in Pavia, Italy!

This event is just one of many that have joined SER's Make a Difference Week initiative this year. Make a Difference Week gives everyone, everywhere a chance to be part of a global restorative impact by engaging with their local ecosystems.

Learn more about GuardIAS on their website: https://guardias.eu/

Learn more bout how to get involved or register your own event: https://makeadifferenceweek.org/

16/05/2026

We join the aquatic ecology community in mourning the tragic loss of our colleagues from the University of Genoa.
Not only have young lives been taken in a terrible way, but also expertise, scientific knowledge, and role models for future generations.
This is an immense loss for us all.

L’Università di Genova esprime profondo cordoglio per l’improvvisa e tragica scomparsa di Monica Montefalcone, professoressa associata di Ecologia al Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, dell’Ambiente e della Vita – DISTAV, della figlia Giorgia Sommacal, studentessa UniGe di Ingegneria biomedica, di Muriel Oddenino, assegnista di ricerca presso il DISTAV, e di Federico Gualtieri, neolaureato magistrale UniGe in Biologia ed Ecologia marina.

Alle famiglie, alle colleghe e ai colleghi, alle studentesse e agli studenti che ne hanno condiviso il percorso umano e professionale, va la vicinanza dell’intera comunità universitaria.

11/05/2026

🦞Come and visit us at this citizen science event organized within the project GuardIAS. We are looking for volunteers to help us in containment actions against the invasive crayfish. Participants will be directly involved in the collection of specimens with the use of traps and their analysis .

If you are interested, please pre-register at the following link: https://forms.gle/knhgHFPrqaPxti6J9

More info ⬇️⬇️⬇️

🌿🔬 La scienza partecipata al servizio della natura

Il progetto europeo GuardIAS è protagonista di una giornata dedicata alla tutela degli ecosistemi acquatici.
Attraverso la citizen science, GuardIAS coinvolge attivamente i cittadini nel monitoraggio delle specie invasive, contribuendo alla protezione della biodiversità locale.

Durante l’evento parleremo del gambero rosso della Louisiana, una specie invasiva sempre più diffusa che sta alterando gli equilibri naturali del nostro territorio.
Scopriremo insieme perché rappresenta una minaccia e come ognuno di noi può fare la differenza.

👣 L’incontro inizierà con una breve camminata naturalistica di circa 15 minuti, per osservare da vicino l’ambiente che vogliamo proteggere.

📅 Quando: 17 maggio, ore 15:00
📍 Dove: Parco del Ticino – ingresso Villa Ronchi
📌 Iscrizioni al link in bio

Unisciti a noi e diventa parte attiva nella salvaguardia dell’ambiente!

26/04/2026

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 A great week in Dundee for our Davide Lelong!

He attended the 37th annual European Cetacean Society Conference, where he was co-author of two collaborative works:
🐬 'Acoustic occurrence of cetaceans in northern Sicily' - together with friends of Avvistiamo
🐬 'Into the unknown: Population structure, social dynamics' - together with friends of DMAD - Marine Mammals Research Association

A great opportunity for Davide to get the best updates on marine mammals research and establish new networks.