Publications by authors named "Diana Di Gioia"

Article Synopsis
  • Chicken manure can be transformed into a valuable fertilizer through a process called AFRODITE®, which involves 8 months of aerobic fermentation and has been studied over two years.
  • The final product maintains stable pH and nitrogen levels, while promoting beneficial bacteria, mainly from the Bacillus genus, which enhance soil and plant growth.
  • Greenhouse tests showed significant growth improvements in lettuce and eggplants when using the pelletized product, demonstrating its effectiveness and supporting the principles of circular economy.
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South America is populated by a wide range of bumble bee species that represent an important source of biodiversity, supporting pollination services in natural and agricultural ecosystems. These pollinators provide unique specific microbial niches, populated by a wide number of microorganisms such as symbionts, environmental opportunistic bacteria, and pathogens. Recently, it was demonstrated how microbial populations are shaped by trophic resources and environmental conditions but also by anthropogenic pressure, which strongly affects microbes' functionality.

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Chitosan chemical functionalization is a powerful tool to provide novel materials for additive manufacturing strategies. The main aim of this study was the employment of computer-aided wet spinning (CAWS) for the first time to design and fabricate carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS) scaffolds. For this purpose, the synthesis of a chitosan derivative with a high degree of O-substitution (1.

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Pollen collected by pollinators can be used as a marker of the foraging behavior as well as indicate the botanical species present in each environment. Pollen intake is essential for pollinators' health and survival. During the foraging activity, some pollinators, such as honeybees, manipulate the collected pollen mixing it with salivary secretions and nectar (corbicular pollen) changing the pollen chemical profile.

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The genus harbors opportunistic pathogenic species, among which is pathogenic for honeybees although little studied. Recently, virulent strains of colonizing the mite's mouth were found vectored into the honeybee body, leading to septicemia and death. also occurs as an opportunistic pathogen in the honeybee's gut with a low absolute abundance.

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The development of eco-friendly polymer composites with multifunctional properties aligns with the goals of the circular economy agenda, which aims to minimize waste and promote the sustainable use of resources by closing the loop of product life cycles. Eco-friendly polymer composites play a crucial role in achieving these objectives. The present work focuses on the preparation of fully biobased blends obtained by melt mixing a bio-polyester, poly(butylene succinate-co-adipate) (PBSA), with orange peels up to 20 wt%, to yield active polymer composites.

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A pot experiment was carried out to evaluate the remediation potential of Brassica juncea and Sorghum bicolor in the decontamination of soil polluted with heavy metals such as copper, lead, tin, and zinc along with polychlorinated biphenyls, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and heavy hydrocarbons. Two composts obtained from different composting processes were tested as biostimulating agents. At the end of the trial, the effect of plant/compost combinations on soil microbial composition, contaminant removal, biochemical indicators, and plant biomass production was determined.

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Fungicides, insecticides and herbicides are widely used in agriculture to counteract pathogens and pests. Several of these molecules are toxic to non-target organisms such as pollinators and their lethal dose can be lowered if applied as a mixture. They can cause large and unpredictable problems, spanning from behavioural changes to alterations in the gut.

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Members of spp. have been widely used to enrich the soil/root interface to provide plant growth promoting activities. A new isolate, namely to sp.

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Pollinators, including solitary bees, are drastically declining worldwide. Among the factors contributing to this decline, bee pathogens and different land uses are of relevance. The link between the gut microbiome composition and host health has been recently studied for social pollinators (e.

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Introduction: evolved mainly in African, Asian, and European continents over thousands of years, leading to the selection of a considerable number of honey bees subspecies that have adapted to various environments such as hot semi-desert zones and cold temperate zones. With the evolution of honey bee subspecies, it is possible that environmental conditions, food sources, and microbial communities typical of the colonized areas have shaped the honey bee gut microbiota.

Methods: In this study the microbiota of two distinct lineages (mitochondrial haplotypes) of bees (lineage A) and and (both lineage C) were compared.

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Millet is the sixth-highest yielding grain in the world and a staple crop for millions of people. Fermentation was applied in this study to improve the nutritional properties of pearl millet. Three microorganism combinations were tested: (FPM1), plus (FPM2) and plus (FPM3).

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Fermentation is one of the most ancient strategies to improve safety and extend shelf-life of the products. Starter cultures are mainly represented by lactic acid bacteria (LAB), which may also be bioprotective agents controlling the fermentation process, the native microbiota and pathogen outgrowth. This work aimed to select new LAB strains from spontaneously fermented sausages produced in different areas of Italy, which can be effective as starter cultures and bioprotective agents in fermented salami.

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Research on the efficacy of innovative, ecofriendly biostimulants in sport turf management is scarce, with less information available from open-field experiments, and even less pertaining to thatch control-related problems. The objective was to investigate the open-field effectiveness of a commercial product, EM-1, and two newly developed products, ExpA and ExpB, in improving both rhizosphere and turfgrass, L., characteristics on a golf green.

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Food waste valorization, considered as energy and/or chemicals source, via biorefinery or biotechnology, gained great attention in recent years, because of the fast depletion of primary resources, increased waste generation and landfilling worldwide. Coffee by-products for example (i.e.

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The research aims to give new insights on the effect of administering selected bacterial strains, isolated from honey bee gut, and/or a commercial plant extract blend (HiveAlive) on Nosema ceranae. Analyses were first performed under laboratory conditions such as different infective doses of N. ceranae, the effect of single strains and their mixture and the influence of pollen administration.

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Intensive conventional farm management, characterized by high agrochemicals input, could alter the composition of microbial communities with potential negative effects on both functional traits and the ecosystem services provided. In this study, we investigated the gut microbial composition of a high ecological relevance carabid Pseudoophonus rufipes, sampled in two fields subjected to conventional and organic management practices. Carabids' gut microbiota was analyzed via qPCR and NGS.

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Article Synopsis
  • Probiotic bacteria offer health benefits but present challenges in strain identification and quality control during production and commercialization processes.
  • Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIRS) is being explored as a fast and effective method for identifying and monitoring probiotic strains, particularly useful for real-time assessment in industrial settings.
  • The study found that FTIRS effectively distinguished different probiotic strains under varying growth conditions and confirmed the phenotypic stability of a specific strain, demonstrating its potential as a reliable quality assessment tool.
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This study investigates the isolation, identification, and fermentation performance of autochthonous acetic acid bacteria (AAB) from local niche habitats on the Island of Gozo (Malta) and their further use for vinegar production, employing local raw materials. The bacteria were isolated from grapevine berries and vinegar produced in the cottage industry. Following phenotype and genotype identification, the AAB were ascribed to the genera , and .

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Several studies have outlined that changes in the honeybee gut microbial composition may impair important metabolic functions supporting the honeybees' life. Gut dysbiosis may be caused by diseases like Nosema ceranae or by other anthropic, environmental or experimental stressors. The present work contributes to increasing knowledge on the dynamics of the gut microbiome acquisition in caged honeybees, an experimental condition frequently adopted by researchers, with or without infection with N.

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Prematurity exposes newborns to increased risks of infections and it is associated with critical morbidities. Preterm infants often require antibiotic therapies that can affect the correct establishment of gut microbiota. The aim of this study was to investigate targeted intestinal bacteria in preterm neonates with common morbidities and receiving antibiotic treatments of variable duration.

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Objectives: This study evaluates the safety and feasibility of a normocaloric ketogenic diet (KD) in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) for reducing hyperexcitability levels and modulating neuroinflammation.

Methods: This is a prospective, open-label pilot study involving men and women diagnosed with ALS, ages 18 to 75 y. The primary outcome is the safety and reproducibility of the KD in people with ALS.

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Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, a technology traditionally used in chemistry to determine the molecular composition of a wide range of sample types, has gained growing interest in microbial typing. It is based on the different vibrational modes of the covalent bonds between atoms of a given sample, as bacterial cells, induced by the absorption of infrared radiation. This technique has been largely used for the study of pathogenic species, especially in the clinical field, and has been proposed also for the typing at different subspecies levels.

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is a major pathogen in the beekeeping sector, responsible for nosemosis. This disease is hard to manage since its symptomatology is masked until a strong collapse of the colony population occurs. Conversely, no medicaments are available in the market to counteract nosemosis, and only a few feed additives, with claimed antifungal action, are available.

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Several studies have outlined that a balanced gut microbiota offers metabolic and protective functions supporting honeybee health and performance. The present work contributes to increasing knowledge on the impact on the honeybee gut microbiota of the three most common veterinary drugs (oxytetracycline, sulfonamides, and tylosin). The study was designed with a semi-field approach in micro-hives containing about 500 honeybees.

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