ERSE Ecological Research and Services for the Environment is a Tuscany Company of experts in Environmental Biology and Natural Sciences. ERSE works throughout the national territory.
within the 2023 marine strategy framework for the sardinia region.
LOCATION
Sardinia
TYPE
Marine water monitoring
CLIENT
ARPAS Sardinia
The Regional Agency for Environmental Protection of Sardinia (ARPAS) conducts, among other activities, monitoring of the Marine Strategy in accordance with the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC), transposed into Italian law by Legislative Decree No. 190 of October 13, 2010. The underlying principle of this decree is the general interest in ensuring the sustainable use of resources in the marine environment.
The Operational Activity Plan (POA) is structured into various operational modules, one of which includes the monitoring of NIS (Non-Indigenous Species). The aim of this monitoring is to assess the potential presence of NIS, defined as species introduced outside their natural distribution area within benthic communities (sediments and hard bottoms). The presence of an NIS results from voluntary or involuntary introductions due to anthropogenic activities (e.g., maritime traffic, ballast water from ships, fouling, aquaculture). Some NIS may exhibit invasive characteristics, leading to negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems.
For the 2023 POA, monitoring was planned for areas in the Porto Canale in Cagliari Gulf, Olbia port, and a mussel farming facility in Oristano Gulf. Specific stations within these areas were selected to monitor benthic communities and detect potential NIS presence.
In detail, the monitoring involved sieving and analyzing the qualitative and quantitative composition of benthic communities from both soft and hard substrates, sampled from the Porto Canale area in Cagliari Gulf, Olbia port, and the mussel farm area in Oristano Gulf. Additionally, sampling and analysis of the epimegabenthos were carried out at the Porto Canale of Cagliari.
The analysis aimed to identify marine organisms at the species level, where possible, within the macrobenthos of soft and hard substrates, the phytobenthos of hard substrates, and the mobile epimegabenthos (at Porto Canale of Cagliari only). Quantitative results were expressed either as the number of individuals (for macrobenthos on hard substrates) or as substrate cover percentage (the latter derived from photographic analysis produced during sampling).
For both sampling campaigns (March 2023 / September 2023), a total of 18 soft substrate samples (6 per station) and 16 hard substrate samples (6 each from the Olbia and Cagliari stations, and 4 from Oristano) were analyzed, in addition to epimegabenthos samples collected using traps at the Porto Canale in Cagliari. For each category, organisms within the samples were extracted and identified to the species level. Organisms lacking the necessary taxonomic features for further classification (e.g., damaged or juvenile individuals with unrecognizable traits) were listed at the lowest taxonomic level determinable with certainty and marked as “ind.” for indeterminate, while those identified to genus level but not confidently assigned to a species were noted as “sp.”
