Aquatic Ecology Lab - Pavia

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.

24/04/2026

Thank you International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR) for showcasing the publication of our PhD student Federica Rotta and help disseminate her results within the freshwater science community.
The original article was also selected as Editor’s Choice for the February 2026 issue of the 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘓𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘙𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩.

Little is know how microplastics behave in the deeper layers of lakes worldwide. A study from Lake Lugano —a lake on the Swiss-Italian border— discovered that microplastics aren’t just floating, they’re found throughout, down to 80m.

https://bit.ly/llwin26

23/04/2026

📍 New publication alert 📍

🇪🇬 We're extremely proud to announce the publication of this new account on marine alien invertebrates occurring in the Port of Alexandria, Egypt, resulting from the efforts of several Mediterranean taxonomists.

🌐 This is the concrete output of a collaboration with Dr Ola Salah, after a visiting grant supported by University of Pavia - Centre for International Cooperation and Development.

💡 This paper confirms the impressively high diversity of marine alien species in the eastern Mediterranean region, and stresses the need of regular monitoring programmes.

🔗Link to the full-text article in the first comment

20/04/2026

🌊 Big News!
A formal collaboration between the Aquatic Ecology Lab - Pavia team and the team led by Prof. Vasilis Gerovasileiou at the Ιόνιο Πανεπιστήμιο - Ionian University (Greece) has started earlier this year.

We are happy to announce that we have officially joined the
INVASIONS-Investigating NIS in hotspot areas of the Ionian Sea project as an external research partner.

INVASIONS is supported by the HFRI (Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation) (HFRI Project Number: 23574).

Our team will contribute to test and validate monitoring protocols to assess NIS diversity in ports and marinas of the Ionian Sea.
Follow the project page for updates, field photos, and insights, as we embark on this scientific journey to safeguard our seas!🐟

17/04/2026

Spring sampling of the installed by Flora Conservation in Pavia main canal, with a surprise 🦆🐣

10/04/2026

🇪🇺 🇪🇺 🇪🇺 With great pleasure this week we have welcomed three Erasmus+ interns that are spending some weeks with us, guided by our bioacoustics guru Davide.

They are:
🇨🇴 Valentina and 🇬🇷 Niko from the IMBRSea master programme. They will work on lionfish acoustics data collected in Greece, in the framework of the project

🇬🇷 Artemis from the University of the Aegean (Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου), going to work on data of marine mammals recorded from MPAs of the Pelagos Sanctuary, in the framework of the CLAPS Project.

You're very welcome guys, and we count on you to advance in the analyses and data processing of our HUGE underwater acoustics datasets

09/04/2026

Our PhD student Federica Rotta is approaching the final phase of her doctorate journey.
This week she presented her work, entirely conducted at SUPSI Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana, about micoplastics pollution in Lake Lugano, Switzerland 🇨🇭
The doctoral committee in Earth and Environmental Sciences of Università degli studi di Pavia admitted her ​to the final defense, which will likely happen in early summer.
Well done Federica, we're very proud of you 🥰