Marine organisms model species for the assessment of biological, environmental and economic impacts on marine aquaculture in Campania

• Main Author: Fioretti, Sara
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: Italian; English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Ocean acidification
• Online Access: http://www.fedoa.unina.it/12630/; http://www.fedoa.unina.it/12630/1/Fioretti_Sara_31_completo.pdf; http://www.fedoa.unina.it/12630/2/Fioretti_Sara_31_parziale.pdf

Campanian region has an important mussel farming tradition, since the Cuman and Greek domination around 700 A.C. through the Bourbons until today. Mussels and the linked supply chain were always been present in the socio-economic scenario of the regional coastal area. Today mussel production in Campania represents almost all the aquaculture total production, resulting one of the most productive Italian regions in this sector. In order to evaluate biological, environmental and economic impacts on marine aquaculture, mussels of the genus Mytilus were chosen as model species. Mussels are perfect model organisms for their biological and physiological characteristics; they are bioengineering species, sedentary organisms, filter feeders, widespread all over the world, easy to keep in laboratories and important food source. Besides food source, thanks to their features mussels provide important ecosystem services as regulating the water column, supporting the food web and provisioning cultural services. Moreover, recently, are becoming source of important bioactive compounds, revealing to be organisms with a high potentiality in several applications. Different kind of stressors, anthropogenic as well as natural stressors, can impact, negatively or positively, on mussels and consequently on the ecosystem services they provide. Aims of the thesis are the evaluation of the effects of three different stressors on mussels supply chain: food frauds, ocean acidification and the grafting operation. Food frauds, the act of defrauding buyers of food and food ingredients for economic gain, can threaten the Campanian mussel supply chain. Unhealthy storage conditions, species substitutions, lack of label and informations on the product origin are all ordinary risks when buying mussels. The threats are both for human health than for the local economy of the honest mussel farmers. In order to investigate on the situation of the Campanian markets, Mytilus galloprovincialis mussels, the native species of the Mediterranean Sea, were ...