Italy
The Apennines have been the subject of much tectonic and geomorphology research. The Northern Apennines are an active orogen formed by subduction and rollback of the Adriatic plate. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging method for monitoring species in a wide range of ecosystems and has been proven to be especially efficient for the fast characterization of water species assemblages including within rivers systems, which can provide interesting insight into the species diversity and link them to physical processes.
Project member
Gabrielle Vance studies the Apennines where large horizontal motions have disrupted the fluvial channel network, establishing a natural experiment in aquatic population mixing. She focuses to couple physical processes with biodiversity by exploring how topographic advection and range divide migration shapes biodiversity patterns. She will clarify the previous observations of geomorphic features associated with the asymmetric main divide in Northern Apennines and use eDNA technique to study aquatic species richness patterns.
Nothern Italy fieldtrip 2022
We collected samples in an intensive fieldwork in northern Italy.
Impressions
