It on board continues the project of sampling of the "DNA of the realized sea" of the ferries of Corsica Sardinia Ferries



Also this year the University of Milan Hut renews its engagement beside Corsica Sardinia Ferries and ISPRA (Istituto Superiore for the Protection and the Environmental research) in the project of safeguard of the cetaceans in the Mediterranean Sea, with the navigation company that will newly put on hand of the search its ferries, optimal platforms of observation, for giving last year keeps on the project of the doctor Elena Valsecchi, started from the University of Milan Hut, than under consideration innovative sight of the biodiversity of the Mediterranean, by means of the analysis of the microtraces of DNA that every living organism releases in the atmosphere in which weevers (eDNA).

This technical new, possible yield from setting up of adulterated technologies of molecular analysis, allows to characterize the presence and the abundance of marine organisms that turn out, for the nature of the habitat in which they live, little accessible and therefore difficult to study. Particular emphasis is given under consideration of the large marine vertebrates (cetaceans, large fish and marine turtles) that, finding itself to the apex of the trofica pyramid, they represent of the optimal bioindicatori of state of health of our sea.

Elena Valsecchi has illustrated the results obtained with the campaign carried out in 2018: "first of all - it has premised - we have had the confirmation that the technique of the withdrawal of money of biological traces from simple water champions in order to study the communities of organisms that they people our seas works, banal but over recent years always amazing aspect. The perspective never explored before, that it has given positive outcome, is that it can be made from ferry and therefore from any large boat, opening so infinite possibilities of biological monitoring of the seas of all the world" "In the overwhelming majority - it has specified - the recovered DNA came from anchovies, sardines, garfishes, glancing at and damsels, but we have found also traces of cetaceans, as the stenella striated and the common finner; in two circumstances in concomitanza with the marked sights from the investigators of ISPRA, that they were monitoring visually the sea from the bridge of Mega the Express Three. This to testimony of the fact that the traces which released in water are "fresh" and therefore reliable in order to determine the presence of a species here where the DNA traces are intercepted".

The Valsecchi doctor has emphasized "large the potential one of this technique", than - she has specified - "bound together to the cover and to the ripetitività of the drafts covered from the ferries, is that of being able to monitor the changes in the abundance and distribution of the marine species of commercial and ecological interest, in relation to the climatic changes that are plaguing our planet and, particularly, the Mediterranean". "The Mediterranean - Valsecchi has remembered - is an only marine atmosphere. It is one of the seas with higher biodiversity (accommodates about 18% of the known marine species, many of which endemic, although it represents only the 0,8% of the surface of the globe covered from the oceans), but more high antropogenico impact is also one of the marine areas and where the effects of the total overheating risk to being more devastating. These are only some of the reasons for which Mediterranean it deserves absolute priority of study, monitoring and conservation".