Mattia Sacco : What is going on down (under) there? Multidisciplinary approaches to unveil the functional ecology of aquatic ecosystems

Inland aquatic ecosystems are essential upholders of global biodiversity, as they provide a plethora of services to nature and humanity. Despite their importance, these ecosystems are increasingly exposed to anthropogenic pressures. Worryingly, our ability to survey for the taxonomic and functional diversity that groundwaters, rivers, lakes, etc. host – and therefore assure their effective protection – is far from perfect. Nonetheless, recent advances in molecular designs, such as environmental DNA (eDNA) are opening a new era of quick, reliable and relatively affordable biomonitoring techniques. Environmental DNA analysis has proved to be an ideal complementary tool for surveying a plethora of aquatic communities, detect the presence of invasive/threatened species, investigating the dietary preferences of targeted groups, and assessing the ecological status of a water body, amongst many other applications. Importantly, eDNA has also served to build bridges between researchers, regulators and citizens in the form of participatory science projects both at local and global scales. In addition, the integration of eDNA data with biogeochemical approaches (e.g., derived from stable isotopes or fatty acid analysis) has recently shed new crucial light on the energy flows, organic interchanges and food web interactions shaping aquatic biota. Ultimately, such novel approaches have the potential to guide tailored conservation strategies for more resilient aquatic ecosystems under the current changing climate.

In this seminar Dr Mattia Saccò will share his experience on the application of functionally based approaches to unravel the ecological dynamics of several aquatic ecosystems, spanning groundwaters to hypersaline lakes. A member of the Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) Lab at Curtin University in Perth (Western Australia), Dr Saccò is currently a Lecturer in Aquatic Ecology and Ecotoxicology, and the leader of the Subterranean Research and Groundwater Ecology (SuRGE) Group at Curtin. Dr Saccò will be a guest researcher at BOREA until December 2026, with the goal of expanding the synergies between the hosting group and TrEnD Lab/SuRGE Group around the implementation of molecular techniques and multidisciplinary research designs more broadly.