Rosaria Lauceri

Conservation status of freshwater mussels in Europe: state of the art and future challenges.

Freshwater mussels of the Order Unionida provide important ecosystem functions and services, yet many of their populations are in decline. We comprehensively review the status of the 16 currently recognized species in Europe, collating for the first time their life‐history traits, distribution, conservation status, habitat preferences, and main threats in order to suggest future management actions. In northern, central, and eastern Europe, a relatively homogeneous species composition is found in most basins. In southern Europe, despite the lower species richness, spatially restricted species make these basins a high conservation priority. Information on freshwater mussels in Europe is unevenly distributed with considerable differences in data quality and quantity among countries and species. To make conservation more effective in the future, we suggest greater international cooperation using standardized protocols and methods to monitor and manage European freshwater mussel diversity. Such an approach will not only help conserve this vulnerable group but also, through the protection of these important organisms, will offer wider benefits to freshwater ecosystems.

A geographic distribution data set of biodiversity in Italian freshwaters

We present a data set on the biodiversity of Italian freshwaters, including lakeshores and riverbanks of natural (N=379: springs, streams and lakes) and artificial (N=11: fountains) sites. The data set belongs partly to the Italian Long Term Ecological Research network (LTER-Italy) and partly to LifeWatch, the European e-Science infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem research. The data included cover a time period corresponding to the last fifty years (1962-2014). They span a large number of taxa from prokaryotes and unicellular eukaryotes to vertebrates and plants, including taxa linked to the aquatic habitat in at least part of their life cycles (like immature stages of insects, amphibians, birds and vascular plants). The data set consists of 6463 occurrence data and distribution records for 1738 species. The complete data set is available in csv file format via the LifeWatch Service Centre.

Coupling a bio-accumulator organism and MALDI-TOF MS: an early warning detection system for microcystins in water bodies.

Microcystins produced by freshwater cyanobacteria pose serious threats to human health and are a growing problem in drinking water supplies worldwide. Toxin detection and identification in water reservoirs when cyanobacterial density is still low is a key step to predict harmful algal blooms and to allow the safe use of the resource. For this purpose, developing sensitive and rapid methods of analysis is crucial. Adopting a strategy that couples the use of a filter-feeder organism (Unio elongatulus, Pfeiffer 1825 (Bivalvia: Unionidae)) with matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization—time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) technology, effective microcystin detection was achieved. The performances of MALDI-TOF MS, high-liquid-performance chromatography with diode array detector (HPLC-DAD) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) test were compared. The results obtained in this study suggest that the exploitation of an efficient bio-accumulator organism, coupled with a rapid and sensitive analytical method, can be a very useful strategy in monitoring programs for early and prompt risk management.