Persistent Digital Identifiers (UIDs)
ORCID :
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7433-2487
Activities
The intertidal environment represents for me the most
fascinating ecosystem all around the world. Marine life fades into terrestrial
habitats through several physiological, morphological and symbiotic
adaptations. It is a natural laboratory where environmental stressors shape and
guide the evolution of life, especially in the light of the dramatic changes
led by rapid global warming. In the tropics, mangroves are intertidal systems
that allow us to unravel evolutionary trajectories and unique symbioses. My
interest has led me to study these systems for several years around the Indian
Ocean, in countries such as Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Mozambique and South
Africa, and the East Atlantic Ocean in Cameroon and Guinea-Bissau. I took part in
three European projects that allowed me to obtain my MSc (University of
Florence) and my PhD with prof. Daniele Daffonchio at the University of Milan. After
my PhD I accepted the postdoctoral fellowship with prof. Daffonchio at KAUST
where I have focused my research on the Red Sea Mangrove ecosystem.
I am interested in disentangling the complex network of
symbiosis functions and physiological adaptations of intertidal animals in the mangrove
ecosystem. Tropical and subtropical mangroves, and in particular those in the
Red Sea, offer a unique opportunity to study extreme conditions that can allow us
to explore unprecedented adaptations and novel forms of symbiosis in intertidal
life.
Skills
Sampling methods: Implementation of methods for species surveys in
different environmental settings.
Ecophysiology: Design and implementation of experiments and
monitoring surveys for metabolic measurements of animals, plants and microbes, involving
microprofiling systems equipped with sensors provided by Unisense A/S
(www.unisense.com) and Presense (www.presense.com).
Environmental monitoring: Set-up of high-performance loggers (temperature,
humidity, irradiance, tidal, Photosynthetic Available Radiation -PAR) in different
environmental settings for long term logging and environmental monitoring.
Implementation of geo-referenced sensors for geo-referenced information system
analysis.
Organization and implementation of
field work and field experiments: Development and coordination of experimental design
and field work logistics.
Microbial Ecology: Advanced methods in metagenomic and molecular bioinformatic
analysis (using qiime, DADA2 and MGRAST).
Microbiology: Use of classical microbiological techniques for
microbe cultivation and phenotypic and molecular analysis.
Statistics: Use and implementation of the software ‘R’ with
advanced methods for proper tools of statistical analysis and model production.
Laboratory set-up: During my first months of KAUST employment I was
directly involved in the planning and realization of wet/dry labs, integrating
several methods of investigation for a multidisciplinary approach to measure the
response of biological systems to environmental changes. In particular I set up
the microprofiling platform and all of the biosensors for sediment, microbe,
animal and plant metabolic measurements.
