Ricerc@Sapienza

Anthropogenic hybridization is increasing worldwide with unpredictable outcomes for species persistence. Accurately quantifying anthropogenic hybridization in threatened populations is fundamental for assessing extinction risk and for elaborating conservation measures. Hybridization between wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) is an emblematic case that is raising concern for wolf conservation across several countries.

Hybridization has been documented in several marine mammal species. Human disturbance can increase hybridization rates by affecting species distribution and abundance. Depleted species, in particular, may face genomic extinction due to lack of conspecific mates and high introgression rates. Understanding how introgressive hybridization can lead to genomic extinction helps identify the management action needed to protect threatened species and populations.

Estimating the relative abundance (prevalence) of different population segments is a key step in addressing fundamental research questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation. The raw percentage of individuals in the sample (naive prevalence) is generally used for this purpose, but it is likely to be subject to two main sources of bias. First, the detectability of individuals is ignored; second, classification errors may occur due to some inherent limits of the diagnostic methods.

Hybridization affects the evolution and conservation status of species and populations. Because the dynamics of hybridization is driven by reproduction and survival of parental and admixed individuals, demographic modelling is a valuable tool to assess the effects of hybridization on population viability, e.g., under different management scenarios. While matrix models have been used to assess the long-term consequences of hybridization between crops and wild plants, to our knowledge they have not been developed for animal species.

Italian native populations of Mediterranean brown trout belong to the Salmo trutta complex. This species complex includes many mitochondrial lineages and phenotypes that have caused taxonomic controversies over time. The spatial distribution and the genetic diversity of these fishes are threatened by habitat destruction, global warming and, mainly, by the introduction of domestic trout of Atlantic origin. Indeed allochthonous trouts were massively restocked in Italian rivers for a century and they admixed with native populations.

In this paper, eddy current pulsed thermography was used to evaluate ballistic impact damages in basalt-carbon hybrid fiber-reinforced polymer composite laminates for the first time, to our knowledge. In particular, different hybrid structures including intercalated stacking and sandwich-like sequences were used. Pulsed phase thermography, wavelet transform, principle component thermography, and partial least-squares thermography were used to process the thermographic data. Ultrasound C-scan testing and X-ray computed tomography were also performed for comparative purposes.

Hybridization between heterospecific individuals has been documented as playing a direct role in promoting paternal leakage and mitochondrial heteroplasmy in both natural populations and laboratory conditions, by relaxing the egg-sperm recognition mechanisms. Here, we tested the hypothesis that hybridization can lead to mtDNA heteroplasmy also indirectly via mtDNA introgression. By using a phylogenetic approach, we showed in two reproductively isolated beetle species, Ochthebius quadricollis and O. urbanelliae, that past mtDNA introgression occurred between them in sympatric populations.