Publications by authors named "Claudia Troiano"
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how the reintroduction of two deer populations, Italian roe deer and red deer, impacts landscape diversity and recovery through changes in land use practices over recent decades.
- Researchers employed surveys and camera trapping to model habitat suitability, population density, and distribution, alongside analyzing land use changes related to both wild and domestic grazers.
- Findings indicate that the deer populations expanded from their release sites and that areas with less grazing experience significant forest encroachment, highlighting the role of wild ungulates in maintaining diverse landscapes in the Apennine mountains.
Animals living on small islands are more drastically exposed to environmental changes, such as food or water starvation, and rapid temperature shifts. Facing such conditions, and probably thank to adaptive plasticity mechanisms, some animals display a Reversed Island Syndrome (RIS), a suite of traits, including skin pigmentation, voracity, sexual dimorphism, showed differently from mainland relatives. Here, we analyse a so far poorly explored aspect of RIS: the effect of this on the microbiota composition of host Italian wall lizard (Podarcis siculus), strongly influenced by the animal's lifestyle, and conditioning the same.
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- Domestication leads to significant human-driven evolutionary changes in animal populations, which, when feralized, may develop traits that combine both wild and domesticated characteristics.
- Feralization is a complex process that varies based on how well rewilded populations adapt to their environments, influenced by their ancestral genetic flexibility.
- Research on feral pigs (Sus scrofa) reveals they are genetically distinct from domestic and wild groups, showing evidence of past artificial selection while currently adapting to natural selection, indicating they function as a unique evolutionary entity.
Background: The Eurasian otter () underwent a strong decline in large areas of the Central-Western part of its distribution range, during the second half of the twentieth century. In Italy, only residual fragmented nuclei survive in the Central-Southern part of the peninsula. Nowadays, the otter is one of the most endangered mammals in Italy, and increasing the knowledge about the ecology of this species is a key step in defining fitting management strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Italian hare (Lepus corsicanus) is endemic to Central-Southern Italy and Sicily, classified as vulnerable due to habitat alterations, low density and fragmented populations and ecological competition with the sympatric European hare (Lepus europaeus). Despite this status, only few and local studies have explored its ecological features. We provided some key traits of the ecological niche of the Italian hare as well as its potential distribution in the Italian peninsula.
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