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Le città crescono a ritmo vertiginoso e, con loro, la richiesta di cibo. Una delle grandi sfide che ci troviamo ad affrontare è poter garantire a tutti cibo sano, sicuro, buono e prodotto da un ecosistema in salute. Siamo quindi di fronte a un bivio: da una parte l’inquinamento, l’esaurimento delle risorse, la degradazione del paesaggio, dall’altra la salute e il benessere. Il progetto “From Seed to Spoon” (“Dal seme al cucchiaio”) nasce proprio dall’esigenza di mostrare questo bivio ai nostri ragazzi, gli adulti di domani. A loro consegniamo questo taccuino, che li possa accompagnare a conoscere la natura che li circonda, e a prendersene cura per imboccare la direzione giusta. La natura infatti non è un banale magazzino di prodotti in campagna o una muta decorazione di città. La natura è una “infrastruttura” vivente, necessaria per la salute e il benessere di ciascuno di noi. Prendersi cura della natura significa avere in cambio aria e acqua pulite, suoli fertili, cibo e persino bellezza: con la natura si può accendere di colori, di profumi e di suoni melodiosi anche la città più grigia o la campagna più degradata. La bellezza è uno strumento molto potente: difficile non esserne soggiogati. Ecco quindi il perché di un taccuino naturalistico, uno strumento leggero e maneggevole che fa della bellezza la propria missione. Qui sono illustrati concetti scientifici, forse meno noti ai più come “i servizi ecosistemici”, “la biodiversità intraspecifica”, “gli alberi habitat”, dove la dolcezza dell’arte si fa portavoce della scienza. Nelle prossime pagine, fissate l’occhio del falco cuculo o passate le dita sulle macchie ruvide delle pere o delle mele succose, addentratevi nella faggeta silenziosa o guardate in alto sul campanile di San Giovanni a Parma: pare di sentire le grida allegre dei rondoni. È la gioia della vita che sta intorno a noi.

Cities are growing at a skyrocketing pace, and along with them, so is food demand. One of the great challenges we face is being able to guarantee everyone healthy, safe, good food, produced by a healthy ecosystem. We are therefore facing a crossroads: on one hand, we find pollution, the depletion of resources, the degradation of the landscape; on the other hand, we find health and well-being. The project “From Seed to Spoon” was born precisely from the need to show this crossroads to our children - the adults of tomorrow. We give them this notebook, which will accompany them to get to know surrounding Nature, and in order them to take good care of it, while taking the right direction. As a matter of fact, nature is not a trivial warehouse of products in the countryside or a plain city decoration. Nature is a living “infrastructure”, necessary for the health and well-being of each one of us. Taking care of nature means getting in exchange clean air and water, fertile soils, food, and even beauty: with nature, even the grayest of the cities or the most degraded countryside can brighten up with colors, scents and melodious sounds. Beauty is a very powerful tool: it is hard not to be subjugated by it. Hence the reason for a naturalistic notebook, a light and handy tool that makes of beauty its mission. Here we illustrate scientific concepts, perhaps lesser known to most, such as “ecosystem services”, “intraspecific biodiversity”, “habitat trees”, where the sweetness of art becomes the ‘spokesperson’ of science. In the following pages, check out the red-footed falcon or run your fingers over the rough patches of the pears or of the juicy apples, enter the silent beech forest or look up at the bell tower of San Giovanni in Parma: you can almost hear the cheerful cries of the swifts. It is the joy of life that surrounds us.

L’ape da miele (Apis mellifera L.), oltre a fornire servizi ecosistemici di regolazione e di approvvigionamento, è anche un noto bioindicatore dello stato di salute dell’ambiente. Durante le attività di bottinamento di polline e di nettare, le api possono raccogliere anche diversi inquinanti ambientali come metalli pesanti, pesticidi, radionuclidi e composti organici volatili (VOCs), i quali possono poi concentrarsi nei prodotti dell’alveare come miele e polline. Recenti studi hanno confermato che gli alveari possono essere ottimi strumenti per monitorare anche il particolato atmosferico aerodisperso. Queste particelle, note come PM (particulate matter), possono avere dimensioni nanometriche e avere origine naturale o antropica. Nel presente lavoro dimostriamo che i prodotti dell’alveare, quali miele e polline, derivanti da famiglie di api che vivono in ambienti fortemente antropizzati possono essere contaminati da PM. La ricerca ha preso in esame un’area ad alto impatto ambientale, corrispondente a una zona industriale del Comune di Parma. L’alveare di studio era collocato nelle vicinanze di una autostrada (Autostrada del Sole A1) e di un termovalorizzatore. Sulle ali e sul polline prelevato dalle tasche polliniche di api bottinatrici sono state effettuate analisi del PM (single particle analysis) mediante l’utilizzo di un microscopio elettronico a scansione (SEM) dotato di microsonda a dispersione di energia di raggi X (EDX), al fine di caratterizzare la morfologia, le dimensioni e la composizione chimica delle polveri. Le analisi sono state condotte anche su un campione di miele proveniente dalla stessa famiglia di api e in particolare sul sedimento estratto dalla matrice zuccherina del prodotto. In tutti i casi, ali, polline e miele presentavano sia particelle di derivazione naturale sia antropica. Tra le prime segnaliamo minerali della famiglia dei fillosilicati, mentre tra le seconde sono state rinvenute polveri di diverse dimensioni, fini ( < 2.5 µm) e ult

Recenti studi hanno dimostrato che l’ape da miele (Apis mellifera L.) è un ottimo strumento per monitorare il particolato atmosferico aerodisperso. Queste particelle, note come PM (particulate matter), possono avere diverse dimensioni - dalle più grossolane (PM 10) alle ultrafini (PM 0.1) - e due fonti di origine: naturale - derivante dall’erosione della litosfera, dalle eruzioni vulcaniche etc. - o antropogenica, prodotto ad esempio dalle industrie e dal traffico veicolare. In queste ultime rientrano soprattutto particelle fini e ultrafini particolarmente dannose per la salute umana. Durante le attività di foraggiamento, l’ape bottinatrice oltre a prelevare nettare, polline e acqua per la famiglia, cattura accidentalmente il PM che si deposita sul corpo e sulle setole dell’insetto, e vi resta attaccato. Il presente studio, iniziato nella primavera del 2018, è stato condotto nei pressi di un cementificio in Val d’Arda (PC): ali di api prelevate da un alveare nei pressi del cementificio sono state analizzate per rilevare la presenza di marcatori ambientali legati alla produzione di cemento e suggerire strategie per ridurre la dispersione di PM. Analisi qualitative del PM contaminante le api sono state realizzate attraverso l'uso di un microscopio elettronico a scansione (SEM) dotato di microsonda a dispersione di energia di raggi X (EDX) che ha permesso di studiare la morfologia, le dimensioni e la composizione chimica delle polveri. Sono stati inoltre analizzati un campione di “farina cruda” e uno di cemento per poter effettuare un confronto con il particolato osservato sulle ali delle api. Sui campioni sono stati riscontrati ingredienti essenziali per la produzione del cemento come ad esempio minerali di carbonato di calcio (calcite e dolomite) di diverse granulometrie, quarzo e fillosilicati ricchi sia di silice che di alluminio con tracce di ferro, tutti potenzialmente ascrivibili al trasporto e alla movimentazione delle materie prime e del prodotto finale. I

Particulate matter (PM) is a complex mixture of airborne chemical compounds commonly classified by their aerodynamic diameter. Although PM toxicity strongly depends on the morphology, chemical composition, and dimensions of particles, exposure limits set by environmental organisations only refer to the mean mass concentration of PM sampled daily or annually by monitoring stations. In this study, we used honey bees as sensors of airborne PM10 and PM2.5 in a highly polluted area of the Po Valley, northern Italy. Honey bees are an efficient sampler of airborne PM because, during flight and foraging activities, their pubescence promotes the accumulation of electrical charge on the body surface owing to air resistance, thus enhancing airborne PM attraction. Particles attached to the body of bees are readily accessible for physico-chemical characterisation using a scanning electron microscope coupled with X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX). Our results demonstrate that residents in the study area are intermittently but chronically exposed to a well-defined spectrum of metal-bearing particles and mineral phases known to induce specific health outcomes. The morphology, size, and chemical composition of PM10 and PM2.5 detected on bees in the monitoring area were indicative of traffic, agricultural operations, and high-temperature combustion processes. The contribution of the A1 Milano-Bologna highway, local wheat and alfalfa cultivation, and the Parma incineration plant were clearly distinguishable. Our data also demonstrated that PM exposure levels may vary sharply throughout the year based on recurrent local activities.

The honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) is a well-known bioindicator of environmental contamination. During the wide-ranging foraging activity, the bee strongly interacts with vegetables, air, soil, and water surrounding the hive, and pollutants from these sources (e.g. heavy metals, radionuclides, VOCs and pesticides) are brought back to the hive. Recently, it has been demonstrated that the forager bee is an ideal tool also for monitoring airborne PM, an emergent pollutant whose exposure is ubiquitous and linked with several adverse health effects. In early spring 2017, during a citizen science project involving students from high school, honey bees were used for monitoring PM in a highly industrialised areas of the Parma Municipality, characterised by the presence of an incinerator, a highway and a high-speed railway. Later on, within the Ecoresiliente Project funded by the Università Cattolica and with the collaboration of the Università Milano Bicocca, a monthly collection of forager bees and pollen grains along the whole productive season led us to highlight the specific role of the different anthropogenic emission sources. Methods. Worker bees were collected monthly, from April to October, from the hive. Fore wings and pollen grains were analysed by means of a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) coupled with X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Airborne dusts were then characterized dimensionally, morphologically and chemically. Results. Both the bees and the pollen grains displayed a high number of inorganic particles from both natural and anthropogenic origin. PM10, PM5, PM2.5, PM1 and several ultrafine dusts (PM<0.1) have also been observed. The morphological and chemical characterization led us to highlight the environmental presence of many compounds possibly emitted from the incinerator and the traffic. Conclusions. Our study confirms that coupling the use of an efficient PM sampler like the honey bee with SEM/EDX analyses can provide accurate information on the env

Industrial activities play a key role in the economic well-being of a country but they usually involve processes with a more or less profound environmental impact, including emission of pollutants. Among them, much attention has been given to airborne particulate matter (PM) whose exposure is ubiquitous and linked with several adverse health effects mainly due to its size and chemical composition. Therefore, there is a strong need to exploit monitoring systems for airborne PM able to provide accurate information on the potential health hazards and the specific emission sources for the implementation of adequate control strategies. The honey bee (Apis mellifera, L.) is widely used as an indicator of environmental pollution: this social hymenopteran strongly interacts with vegetables, air, soil, and water surrounding the hive and, as a consequence, pollutants from these sources are translated to the insect and to the hive products. During the wide-ranging foraging activity, the forager bee is known to collect samples of the main airborne PM pollutants emitted from different sources and therefore it can be used as an efficient PM sampler. In the present research, PM contaminating forager bees living nearby a cement factory and several kilometers away from it has been analysed and characterised morphologically, dimensionally and chemically through SEM/EDX. This provided detailed information on the role of both the cement manufacturing activities and the vehicular traffic as sources of airborne PM. This may indeed help the implementation of appropriate preventive and corrective actions that would effectively minimize the environmental spread of pollutant PM not only in areas close to the plant, but also in more distant areas.

Background: The current extensive use of the domestic goat (Capra hircus) is the result of its medium size and high adaptability as multiple breeds. The extent to which its genetic variability was influenced by early domestication practices is largely unknown. A common standard by which to analyze maternally-inherited variability of livestock species is through complete sequencing of the entire mitogenome (mitochondrial DNA, mtDNA). Results: We present the first extensive survey of goat mitogenomic variability based on 84 complete sequences selected from an initial collection of 758 samples that represent 60 different breeds of C. hircus, as well as its wild sister species, bezoar (Capra aegagrus) from Iran. Our phylogenetic analyses dated the most recent common ancestor of C. hircus to ∼460,000 years (ka) ago and identified five distinctive domestic haplogroups (A, B1, C1a, D1 and G). More than 90 % of goats examined were in haplogroup A. These domestic lineages are predominantly nested within C. aegagrus branches, diverged concomitantly at the interface between the Epipaleolithic and early Neolithic periods, and underwent a dramatic expansion starting from ∼12-10 ka ago. Conclusions: Domestic goat mitogenomes descended from a small number of founding haplotypes that underwent domestication after surviving the last glacial maximum in the Near Eastern refuges. All modern haplotypes A probably descended from a single (or at most a few closely related) female C. aegagrus. Zooarchaelogical data indicate that domestication first occurred in Southeastern Anatolia. Goats accompanying the first Neolithic migration waves into the Mediterranean were already characterized by two ancestral A and C variants. The ancient separation of the C branch (∼130 ka ago) suggests a genetically distinct population that could have been involved in a second event of domestication. The novel diagnostic mutational motifs defined here, which distinguish wild and domestic haplogroups, could be u

Honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) are bioindicators of environmental pollution levels. During their wide-ranging foraging activity, these hymenopterans are exposed to pollutants, thus becoming a useful tool to trace the environmental contaminants as heavy metals, pesticides, radionuclides and volatile organic compounds. In the present work we demonstrate that bees can also be used as active samplers of airborne particulate matter. Worker bees were collected from hives located in a polluted postmining area in South West Sardinia (Italy) that is also exposed to dust emissions from industrial plants. The area is included in an official list of sites of national interest for environmental remediation, and has been characterized for the effects of pollutants on the health of the resident population. The head, wings, hind legs and alimentary canal of the bees were investigated with Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). The analyses pointed to specific morphological and chemical features of the particulate, and resulted into the identification of three categories of particles: industry -, postmining -, and soil –derived. With the exception of the gut, all the analyzed body districts displayed inorganic particles, mostly concentrated in specific areas of the body (i.e. along the costal margin of the fore wings, the medial plane of the head, and the inner surface of the hind legs). The role of both past mining activities and the industrial activity close to the study area as sources of the particulate matter is also discussed. We conclude that honey bees are able to collect samples of the main airborne particles emitted from different sources, therefore could be an ideal tool for monitoring such a kind of pollutants.

Wolbachia pipientis is known to infect only arthropods and nematodes (mainly filarial worms). A unique feature shared by the two Phyla is the ability to replace the exoskeleton, a process known as ecdysis. This shared characteristic is thought to reflect a common ancestry. Arthropod moulting is induced by the steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) and a role for ecdysteroids in nematode ecdysis has also been suggested. Removing Wolbachia from filarial worms impairs the host’s development. From analyses of the genome of Wolbachia harboured by the filarial nematode Brugia malayi and that of its host, the bacterium may provide a source of heme, an essential component of cytochrome P450’s that are necessary for steroid hormone biosynthetic pathways. In arthropods, Wolbachia is a reproductive manipulator, inducing various phenotypic effects that may be due to differences in host physiology, in particular, endocrine-related processes governing development and reproduction. Insect steroids have well-defined roles in the coordination of multiple developmental processes, and in adults they control important aspects of reproduction, including ovarian development, oogenesis, sexual behaviour, and in some taxa vitellogenin biosynthesis. According to some authors ecdysteroids may also act as sex hormones. In insects sex differentiation is generally thought to be a strictly genetic process, in which each cell decides its own sexual fate based on its sex chromosome constitution, but, surprisingly, recent data demonstrate that in Drosophila sex determination is not cell-autonomous, as it happens in mammals. Thus the presence of signals coordinating the development of a gender-specific phenotype cannot be excluded. This could explain why Wolbachia interferes with insect reproduction; and also could explain why Wolbachia interferes with insect development. Thus, is “sex (=reproduction) and stripping (=ecdysis)” the key to the intimate relationship between Wolbachia and its host?

Climatic history and ecology are considered the most important factors moulding the spatial pattern of genetic diversity. With the advent of molecular markers, species' historical fates have been widely explored. However, it has remained speculative what role ecological factors have played in shaping spatial genetic structures within species. With an unprecedented, dense large-scale sampling and genome-screening, we tested how ecological factors have influenced the spatial genetic structures in Alpine plants. Here, we show that species growing on similar substrate types, largely determined by the nature of bedrock, displayed highly congruent spatial genetic structures. As the heterogeneous and disjunctive distribution of bedrock types in the Alps, decisive for refugial survival during the ice ages, is temporally stable, concerted post-glacial migration routes emerged. Our multispecies study demonstrates the relevance of particular ecological factors in shaping genetic patterns, which should be considered when modelling species projective distributions under climate change scenarios.

Zyginidia pullula is a grass-dwelling leafhopper characterized by a bisexual reproduction mode. In this species, some females collected in Northern Italy, when mated with males, gave origin to an exclusively female brood. Here, we demonstrated that in these lineages an infection by a new strain of Wolbachia pipientis—designated as wZygpul—was detected by amplifying and sequencing the wsp and 16S rRNA genes. About half of the female progeny were characterized by intersexual phenotypes, i.e. showing upper pygofer appendages, a typical male secondary sexual feature. The karyological analysis proved that while phenotypically normal females had a female genotype, those with upper pygofer appendages had a male genotype and were thus feminized males. The complete removal of W. pipientis after tetracycline treatment of morphologically normal females, and the consequent re-appearance of males in the brood, permitted us to connect the feminizing effect with the presence of the bacterium. This is the first case of feminization by W. pipientis in an XX/X0 sexdetermination system, and is the second case reported in insects.

Two new species of the genus Seira are described: Seira atlantica n. sp. and Seira maroccana n. sp. They come from two different sites along the Atlas mountains (Morocco); their descriptions are mainly based on the distribution and number of the dorsal macrochaetae and pigmentation. Both new taxa belong to the domestica group of species, characterized by a reduced number of dorsal macrochaetae. Their relationships among congeneric species are discussed.

Climatic history and ecology are considered the most important factors moulding the spatial pattern of genetic diversity. With the advent of molecular markers, species' historical fates have been widely explored. However, it has remained speculative what role ecological factors have played in shaping spatial genetic structures within species. With an unprecedented, dense large-scale sampling and genome-screening, we tested how ecological factors have influenced the spatial genetic structures in Alpine plants. Here, we show that species growing on similar substrate types, largely determined by the nature of bedrock, displayed highly congruent spatial genetic structures. As the heterogeneous and disjunctive distribution of bedrock types in the Alps, decisive for refugial survival during the ice ages, is temporally stable, concerted post-glacial migration routes emerged. Our multispecies study demonstrates the relevance of particular ecological factors in shaping genetic patterns, which should be considered when modelling species projective distributions under climate change scenarios.