We are pleased to inform that the collection of articles published in the special issue “Cave Communities: From the Surface Border to the Deep Darkness” edited by Dr. Manenti and Dr. Lunghi is now available as a book. You can download the pdf for free from the link below.
Title: Cave Communities: From the Surface Border to the Deep Darkness
Editors: Raoul Manenti and Enrico Lunghi
Journal: Diversity
In this article we performed a review aiming to define the state-of-the-art of researches published on the behabviour of Speleomantes cave salamanders, and we provided insights for future researches aiming to fill the current knowledge gap.
Title: Recent Advances in the Behavioral Ecology of European Plethodontid Salamanders
Authors: Andrea Costa , Enrico Lunghi, Giacomo Rosa, Sebastiano Salvidio
Journal: Animals
Link to the article Recent Advances in the Behavioral Ecology of European Plethodontid Salamanders
Amazing conference! Great vibe, great people! I want to thank all particpiants and the great job done by the Organizing Committee. See you at the next one! 😉
We recently got funds for this project, which aims to assess the presence of trace metals in cave soil and whether they are stored in animals tissues. The project will start in December 2024. Here a breif description.
Subterranean environments are widespread on Earth, yet we have a poor knowledge of their biota. These environments are characterized by peculiar characteristics that make them unique but also extremely sensitive to human induced effects. Nonetheless, they hold a very rich and unique biodiversity. A few studies focused on assessing the potential pollutants of different nature into subterranean environments; surprisingly those focusing on metal contaminants are quite scarce. Furthermore, the majority of those studies analysed groundwater, while cave soil has been usually neglected.
With this project we aim to perform the first assessment of metal contaminants in soil and organisms from different caves, as well as from surface soil in the proximity of each cave entrance, in order to evaluate the flux and accumulation of these contaminants across environments and trophic webs. To reach this goal, we will assess patterns of metal accumulation and gene expression in two facultative cave species living in highly polluted and lowly polluted (i.e., control) caves of the Apennines: the Italian cave salamander Speleomantes italicus (Amphibia; Plethodontidae) and the Laetitia’s cave cricket Dolichopoda laetitiae (Insecta; Rhaphidophoridae).
These two species often live in syntopy and occupy different positions in the subterranean trophic web; cave salamanders are top predators, while cave crickets are saprophagous that occupy the lowest trophic level.
We will choose 20 caves (at least 10 inhabited by each target species) and measure the concentration of multiple metal contaminants in cave soil, as well as in the soil from the surroundings of the cave entrance. Caves are chosen according to their vicinity to pollution sources (e.g., quarry, roads). To assess the effects of metal pollution, we will analyse the metal-tissue burden and gene expression differences in both S. italicus (n=24) and D. laetitiae (n=24) living in two highly polluted and two lowly polluted caves (6 individuals per species from each cave). For each salamander, we will analyse gene expression differences by transcriptomics analysis (RNAseq) of three key tissues involved in metal uptake (skin) and metal storage and detoxification (muscle and liver). For the same tissues, we will measure the concentration of the biologically-available and potentially toxic metals by Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). For crickets the metal burden and transcriptomic differences will be assessed on the whole-body tissue.
Results from this project will elucidate the metal contaminants fluxes across the interface between surface and subterranean ecosystems, and their potential impacts on biodiversity, including the patterns of bioaccumulation among cave organisms and across trophic webs, and the mechanisms used by organisms to deal with chronic metal exposure.
In this article we performed a review of research papers in which experiments or description of specific behavioural trait were performed in cave species. Data was then analysed to assess the convergent evolution of such behavioral traits, and to infer on the role that behavioural adjustments may have during the colonization of subterranean environments.
Title:
Behavioural adjustments enable the colonization of subterranean environments
Authors: Enrico Lunghi , Stefano Mammola, Alejandro Martínez, Thomas Hesselberg
Journal: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
Link to the article Behavioural adjustments enable the colonization of subterranean environments
At the end of April 2023, students participated in an excursion to a cave, activity included in the class “Biology of Subterranean Environments”. Students adopted monitoring methodologies to collect data on the environment and on different species, such as cricket, spiders and gastropods. More attention has been paid to the plethodontid salamander Speleomantes italicus; individuals have been photographed, measured and weighed. We thank the Gruppo Grotte e Forre CAI Teramo for their support!
The program of the 8th Conference on the Biology of Plethodontid Salamanders is ready! Check it out and I’ll see you there!
In this article we provided the data deriving from two monitoring scheme interesting four populations (three epigeous and one from artificial springs) of the Sette Fratelli cave salamander Speleomantes sarrabusensis.
Title: Species diversity and distribution of amphibians and reptiles in Sardinia, Italy
Authors: Roberto Cogoni, Milos Di Gregorio, Fabio Cianferoni, Enrico Lunghi
Journal: Animals
Link to the article Monitoring of the Endangered Cave Salamander Speleomantes sarrabusensis
Special Issue: Salamanders: Distribution, Diversity, and Conservation
In this article we show an updated database on the distribution of herp species in Sardegna, with an analysis on the environmental variables that promote higher species abundance.
Title: Species diversity and distribution of amphibians and reptiles in Sardinia, Italy
Authors: Claudia Corti, Marta Biaggini, Valeria Nulchis, Roberto Cogoni, Ilaria Maria Cossu, Salvatore Frau, Manuela Mulargia, Enrico Lunghi, Lara Bassu
Journal: Acta Herpetologica
Link to the article Species diversity and distribution of amphibians and reptiles in Sardinia, Italy
