7 October 2019

Monitoring of terrestrial mollusc and arthropods in the islands of the Ponziane Archipelago has just been completed by a group of experts from the University of Siena, the Natural History Museum of Florence and the CNR of Florence, coordinated by ISPRA.

As in the previous sessions, monitoring of terrestrial mollusc was conducted in the selected sample sites by using standardized methods, i.e. visual collection within defined areas for defined time. Among the first impressions to be noted is the reduction of shells predated by rats.

Similarly, monitoring of arthropods was conducted with the same techniques of 2017: pitfall traps for a qualitative-quantitative survey (to know what species are present and how common they are) and mowing with an entomological net for a qualitative analysis on selected target groups.

In the next weeks data will be elaborated in order to obtain a comparison between pre-eradication and post-eradication sessions. Results will allow to evaluate the effects of LIFE PonDerat on invertebrates.