23 Feb. 2016 - Federica Mauri, Alessandro Carnelli and Antonella Demarta

20160223 Seminario SUPSI

Aeromonas spp.: model for monitoring the impact of antibiotic compounds in water environments

Presentano: Federica Mauri, Alessandro Carnelli e Antonella Demarta

SUPSI Laboratory of applied microbiology, Bellinzona, Switzerland

Antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes are causing increasing problems especially in clinical settings. Nowadays they are considered important environmental contaminants but little is known yet about their fate in the environment or about how they affect the natural microbial populations. In the environment, especially in water, antibiotic determinants may become part of the environmental gene pool, may spread horizontally, and may move back to humans and animals via contaminated food and drinking water.
Bacteria of the genus Aeromonas are ubiquitous in aquatic environments. They can therefore be used as a model of hydric microorganisms exposed to the residual antibiotic compounds and to the aquatic resistome. On the other hand, fecal coliforms, a non taxonomic group that includes genera of bacteria that originate mainly from human and animal feces, represent an allochthonous population of the water environment; they are primarily exposed to antibiotics used and misused in clinical and veterinarian settings.
We at first examined the presence, the distribution and the transferability of the more important resistance determinants. i.e. transposons, integrons, and plasmids, in strains isolated from aquatic environments submitted to diverse levels of antibiotic contamination. In a second time, we investigated the role of Aeromonas spp. in the spread of resistances studying their conjugation, transformation and transduction abilities.

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16 Feb. 2016 - Serena Doni

20160216 Seminario Doni

Biochemical monitoring in the rehabilitation processes of soil and sediment

Presenta: Serena Doni

CNR ISE, sede di Pisa

The measurement of the activity of several enzymes in soil and sediment may be a good method for estimating the overall microbial activity and its response to recovering practices of environmental matrices. Together with biochemical methods, which provide a general measurement of soil dynamics, molecular techniques enable us to identify microbial diversity and to clarify the microbial community structure. In the last few years, many efforts have been devoted to the study of the real executors of the genome at molecular scales: the proteins. Metaproteomics studies the collective proteins from all the microorganisms belonging to a community and provides useful information about the actual functionality in relation to metabolic pathways in soil. The combination of genomic techniques with genomic products represents the new challenge of the molecular techniques applied to soil, because of it will give information about the link between microbial community-structure and soil microbial functions.

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16 Feb. 2016 - Grazia Masciandaro

20160216 Seminario Masciandaro

Scientific and practical implications in the management of degraded environmental matrices: soils and sediments

Presenta: Grazia Masciandaro

CNR ISE, sede di Pisa

The scientific research at laboratory level represents a fundamental step in order to understand the processes involved in the rehabilitation and decontamination of degraded environmental matrices. The knowledge of processes and set up of the techniques at micro- and meso-scale levels, ensures the success of them at real scale. Soil degradation, soil contamination and sediment management, represent some considerable environmental problems recognized at European level.
In the last ten years, these topics have been addressed in both National and International projects. As examples, the BIOREM and CLEANSED projects have the objective of preserving and improving soil quality and recovering contaminated soils and sediments. BIOREM project provides an integrated system aimed at evaluating the rehabilitation of degraded soils by combining the application of exogenous organic matter and the re-vegetation with appropriate shrub and tree species. On the other hand, CLEANSED is an innovative project aimed at reusing decontaminated sediments in the nursery activity. It is also tested for the first time the possibility of reusing dredged sediments in the environmental field, as filling material for road building. The strategies described above for the restoration of degraded environmental matrices are driven by the biological processes which involve the living component of soil, microorganisms and their diversity and functionality.

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9 Feb. 2015 - Claudia Palestrini

20160209 Seminario Palestrini

Scarabeidi coprofagi e servizi ecosistemici
(Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae)

Presenta: Claudia Palestrini

Università di Torino, Italy

Gli Scarabeidi coprofagi sono responsabili di importanti funzioni ecologiche che, in molti casi, si configurano come veri e propri servizi ecosistemici. Negli ecosistemi a pascolo questi coleotteri assicurano primariamente la rimozione e l'interramento dello sterco prodotto da vertebrati e ciò aumenta la fertilità del suolo, che determina a sua volta un incremento della crescita vegetale. I coleotteri coprofagi, utilizzando lo sterco per alimentazione e nidificazione, controllano i parassiti dello sterco , areano il suolo e ne aumentano altresì la permeabilità. Il Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e Biologia dei Sistemi dell'Università di Torino studia l'ecologia funzionale di questi animali da oltre 10 anni. Si è dimostrato che la conservazione della loro biodiversità assicura il recupero dei pascoli alpini minacciati dall'abbandono, favorisce la dispersione e la germinazione dei semi delle graminacee, modula la dinamica spazio-temporale dei nutrienti (fosfati e nitrati) e, come ultimo aspetto esplorato, controlla la quantità dei gas serra emessi dallo sterco vaccino.

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04 Feb. 2016 - Claudia Dresti

20160204 Seminario Dresti

Human activities and climate change: evaluation of the impacts on mountain rivers

Presenta: Claudia Dresti

CNR ISE Verbania Pallanza

Human activities strongly interfere with nature, since humans need natural resources for several uses. These effects are both direct, such as the land use change in a catchment, or indirect, such as climate change. Various factors determine the health of a river ecosystems, and among these factors the most important were considered: the hydromorphological conditions, the ecological flow evaluation, the combined effects of climate and land use changes and the effects of reservoirs, which alter the flow regime of a river. The first part is focused on the evaluation of the hydromorphological state of some mountain streams located in the Italian Alps. The analyses were carried out using the method CARAVAGGIO (Core Assessment of River hAbitat VAlue and hydro-morpholoGIcal cOndition), which complies with the EC Water Framework Directive. The ecological flow was estimated from basic hydrological information, using a simple set of coefficients to take into account other quality issues, particularly the lentic-lotic features of flow regime.
The third aspect that was considered is the combined effect of climate variability and human activities (land use change) on the natural streamflow. A case study based on a tributary of Lake Maggiore was carried out. Finally, the effects of reservoirs on the hydrological regime of the river are discussed.

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