UTILITY AND LIMITS IN THE USE OF HISTORICAL MARINE BIODIVERSITY DATASETS: A CASE STUDY IN THE GULF OF NAPLES

Abstract

Utility and limits in the use of historical marine biodiversity datasets, for past reconstruction and recent evaluation of marine biodiversity and local ecological conditions, is here presented giving an example in the Gulf of Naples. The examined area is one of the better known of the entire Mediterranean sea due to historical observation on marine diversity since the last decade of the XIX century, mainly by Salvatore Lo Bianco and later by Ugo Moncharmont and his “Archivio”,  both  operating at the Stazione Zoologica A. Dohrn of Naples. These datasets proved to be very useful to relocate rare species, or track the occurrence of alien taxa. However, the spatial and temporal fragmented observation, the recent changes in the taxonomy, and the difficulty to relocate geographic toponyms, make it sometimes impossible to compare recent patterns from previous historical situations, as in the given example of the evaluation of the industrial impact of the iron factory Italisider in the Bagnoli area.