Ricerc@Sapienza

Research activity. My main interests are focused on the understanding of the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that promote the genetic diversity of natural populations, the starting point for the control and management of biological resources. I am also interested in using evolutionary genetic principles to reconstruct the past and current history of vectors to inform control strategies.

The main lines of research include:
Genetic polymorphisms, in relation to different physiological and ecological parameters;
- molecular interactions and adaptive polymorphisms in parasite-host systems;
- the role of natural selection in the process of speciation;
- hybridization as the source of variability in animal populations;
- distribution of species of medical-health interest;
- influence of maternally inherited endosymbiont bacteria on the genetic and ecological characteristics of host populations;
- improvement of breeding programs and strategies for the conservation of germplasm;
- development and application of eco-compatible control strategies as a potential alternative or support to pesticide strategies for pest management.

A large portion of my work has been devoted to the genetics and ecology of arthropod populations for the development and application of control strategies that allow the reduction of environmental burden and health risks from pesticides. The study systems are mosquitoes (Culex pipiens, Aedes caspius, Aedes albopictus, Anopheles stephensi) and ticks (Ixodes ricinus, Riphicephalus sanguineus sensu lato). In this context, the researches are aimed on one hand to rationalize the use of chemicals in pest control programs, on the other hand, to develop biological strategies to be used in alternative or conjunctly to chemical control. I have been using population genetic approaches of pest insects to gain information about the appropriate geographical scale of control programs and about the risk of the appearance and spread of resistance alleles, testing a system of autocidal control based on sterile insect techniques in Aedes albopictus and investigating the role of cellular defence mechanism against pesticides, focusing on the possibility to inhibit these defenses to improve the efficacy of chemical control and to reduce the amount of pesticides used in the field.