Special Session 4

Human activities on pelagic and benthic domains in offshore, coastal and transitional waters have repercussions on different emblematic species as the marine turtles, cetaceans, seahorses and pipefishes which result particularly vulnerable to cumulative impacts. Descriptive, interpretative and predictive models to assess their conservation status need a large amount of biotic and abiotic data extending from biological cycles to habitat use as well as from the incidence of local anthropogenic threats and global changes. To that regard, emerging topics in eco-informatics could highlight enormous benefits from the integration of bio-ecology with the information science and the applied technology, which allows a rapid development of a variety of strategies devoted to maintaining marine biodiversity and ecosystems services. This session is focused on the most advanced and emerging statistical techniques and technology applied to the integration of biological and environmental data oriented to the conservation of marine turtles, cetaceans, seahorses and pipefishes. Contributions with sound methodologies and/or applications are particularly welcomed.

Roberto Carlucci holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and he is Assistant Professor in Ecology. His main research interests have been focused on the application of biological, statistical and mathematical models to marine ecology, population dynamics, fishery stock assessment as well as marine food-webs. He worked on EU DCF data collection, marine bio-invasions of alien species in the Mediterranean Sea and the implementation of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The application of EAF principles to fisheries management have been at the core of these collaborations. Roberto Carlucci was member of the Necton and Fisheries Steering Committee of the Italian Society of Marine Biology during 2010-2013 and 2013-2015. In addition, Roberto Carlucci long attended the Working Group on Fishery Stock Assessment of Demersal Species in the framework of the FAO General Fishery Commission for the Mediterranean as well as the FAO regional projects Eastmed being responsible of the Geographical Sub Area GSA19 (Western Ionian Sea). Roberto Carlucci is also the scientific responsible of the Jonian Dolphin Conservation onlus which is focused on the assessment and conservation of dolphin and whales in the Ionian Sea. Moreover, Roberto Carlucci is member of the CIESM Task Force on Sharks and Rays. Roberto Carlucci has (co)-authored more than 106 scientific publications in congress proceedings, national and international ISI journals. Roberto Carlucci is a reviewer for Italian and international ISI journals.

Rosalia Maglietta holds a Ph.D. in Physics and a master’s degree on Remote Sensing from the University of Bari. She is researcher at the National Research Council (Italy). Her main scientific interests are in the fields of machine learning and pattern recognition, including design and development of strategies for supervised and unsupervised learning, development of algorithms for 3D and 2D images segmentation and analysis, feature extraction, learning models for imbalanced and big data. The application fields of interest are marine biology, ecological informatics, bioinformatics and medicine. She collaborated in many scientific researches and projects based on the observation, monitoring, modelling and understanding of inland and marine environment using technologies and intelligent systems. She has a collaborative partnership with the Jonian Dolphin Conservation NGO, providing insights for structured collection and intelligent analysis of data obtained during marine mammal’s observations. In 2017 she obtained a laudable service attestation as part of the activities carried out for the National Research Council. She has co-authored about 80 papers in international journals and conference. She serves as editor and referee for International journal and conferences.

Cataldo Pierri is graduated in Biological Sciences, he holds the PhD in Fundamental Ecology. Deals with functional and structural biodiversity in the marine environment. The scientific interests range on the protection and conservation of marine species and habitats. He deals with marine bioconstruction from a conservation and structural point of view. Concerning biodiversity studies, he deals with the phenomenon of biological invasions from a macroecological point of view. In coastal marine environments, he deals with the analysis of Syngnathid (seahorses and pipefish) communities; with models on the environmental suitability for nesting of the Caretta caretta. Author of numerous international publications, he collaborates with various public and private research institutions and now he is a researcher at the Department of Biology of the University of Bari where he teaches didactic of biology and applied zoology. Cataldo Pierri was data manager for the LifeWatch research infrastructure, in the framework of the "ecosystem vulnerability to alien and invasive species" study case. He has been a speaker at numerous national and international conferences, scientific responsible of national and international research projects, as well as editor and reviewer of ISI journals.