PROJECT .
PhD student
The "Bio-monitoring" project, which is part of the Foundation's area dedicated to research on climate change, pollution and anthropogenic impact , aims to investigate the effect of these aspects on the behaviour of animals and their health state; in particular, the project intends to use some animal species present within the ZOOM Biopark as bioindicators.
There are numerous threats that increasingly endanger natural resources and contribute to the destruction of the ecosystems and biodiversity of the planet: pollution of the various environmental compartments, climate change, but also pathogens, the use of pesticides, 'increased urbanization, noise pollution, and the invasion of alien species.
Several studies (e.g., Ryan et al, 2018) have shown that different animal matrices, such as feathers, feces and eggs, are an efficient method for environmental biomonitoring and are excellent bioindicators for assessing the level of alteration in the state of health of the specimen. In particular, birds will be the most investigated species, since their feathers in particular are able to accumulate, over time, different types of pollutants, thus providing a historical "record" of the exposure. (Burger, 1993 - Abbasi et al., 2015).
Furthermore, different species accumulate pollutants in different ways (Rutkowskaa et al, 2018) according to their characteristics.
The species present in zoological parks can be excellent bioindicators for collecting data in different geographical areas: the use of the same species, the same sampling and analysis methods, could allow a comparison of the health status of the different regions and lead to the creation of an international study network.
The objective of the project is to search for data that can provide information on the different types of pollution that impact the animal species of the biopark, using non-invasive investigation methods, i.e. through the collection and analysis of different animal and plant matrices, as a substrate to evaluate the impact of contaminants in food and the environment and therefore on the health and behavior of animals
PERFORMED ACTIVITIES.
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PhD scholarship activation in Sustainable Development and Cooperation (SUSTNET)
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Study of the areas of the park to obtain a 360° monitoring (water-air-soil-vegetable and animal matrices)
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Analysis of honey samples from ZOOM hives to determine the concentrations of various emerging contaminants, heavy metals and microplastics
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Development of field analysis methods with the aim of creating biomonitoring models that use animal and plant matrices as bio-indicators and to evaluate the welfare state of the animals under examination.
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Characterization of animal and environmental matrices
PARTNER.
