Professional Summary
I try to contribute to the achievement of a Sustainable Development using ecological ap- proaches in marine environments
My research lines are dedicated to the study of the human impact on marine ecosystems through fishing and pollution
Over the years, I have focused mainly on overfishing, physical impact on substrates and biocenosis, and loss of biodiversity
My approaches range from the use of satellite data to DNA, passing through statistics and artificial intelligence
I love math and computer science and I like to develop new methodological approaches and open-source models (especially in the R environment)
I think Ecology is the science of complexity and can only be applied with solid interdisciplinary bases
Education
2005 - Doctor of Philosophy in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology. Thesis title: New insights into larval finfish ecomorphology: shape and trophic habits changes during ontogenesis. Institution: University of Rome Tor Vergata
2001 - Master’s Degree (MSc) in Biological Science. Institution: University of Rome Tor Vergata
Memberships
2018 - ongoing - Board of the School of Doctorate in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology. http://http://www.dottoratobee.uniroma2.it/
2010 - ongoing - Inter-University Consortium of Marine Science - CoNISMA. http://www. conisma.it
2020 - ongoing - Member of the Working Group on Fisheries Benthic Impact and Trade-offs (WGFBIT - https://www.ices.dk/community/groups/Pages/WGFBIT.aspx) of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)
2022 - ongoing - Associated to the Italian National Research Council, Institute for Marine Biological Resources and Biotechnologies
Roles
2021 - Italian National Focal Point for the FAO AdriaMed Project. http://www.faoadriamed. org/
2021 - Chair of the ICES Review group RGTRADE3 follwing the request by the European Commission to deliver “advice on a set of management options to reduce the impact of mobile bottom contacting fishing gears on seafloor habitats, and for each option provide a trade-off analysis between fisheries and the seafloor”
2021 - Panelist for the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) within the Sustainable Management of UK Marine Resources research programme https://nerc.ukri.org/research/funded/programmes/ marine-resources/
2010 - ongoing - Involved as reviewer for more than 40 International ISI Journals including: Science, Nature Communications, ICES Journal of Marine Science, Biological Journal of the Lynnean Society, Hydrobiologia, Journal of Sea Research, and Deep Sea Reserch Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography
2010 - ongoing - Involved as invited expert in several Expert Working Groups of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF - https://stecf.jrc.ec.europa. eu/)
2020 - ongoing - Associate Editor of Frontiers in Marine Science - Marine Evolutionary Biology, Biogeography and Species Diversity and Guest Associate Editor della rivista Frontiers in Marine Science - Marine Fisheries, Aquaculture and Living Resources https://loop. frontiersin.org/people/134997/editorial
Teaching activity
Class of Ecology - First level Master Degree in Biological Science - Department of Biology - University of Rome Tor Vergata
Class of Informatics Methods for Biology - Second level Master Degree in Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Applied Anthropology
Class of Ecology - Second level Master Degree in Health and safety sciences - Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata
Class of Fisheries Biology and Aquaculture - Second level Master Degree in Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Applied Anthropology
Class of Marine Biology - First level Master Degree in Biological Science - Department of Biology - University of Rome Tor Vergata
Research Projects and Grants
MAREA Project - tenders MARE/2009/05 - LOT 1 – Mediterranean (http://mareaproject. net/contracts/10/overview/) - Task 4.2 Coordinator: Development of a statistical spatial approach for the identification of stocks and related boundaries
Flag Project RITMARE – WP2 AZ2 (http://www.ritmare.it/) - Action Leader: Modelling of commercial stocks with particular emphasis to the role of fishing effort by VMS data
MANTIS: Marine protected Areas Network Towards Sustainable fisheries in the Central Mediterranean - European Commission , DG MARE Agreement number – SI2 - 721911WP Role: Leader Modelling of spatial interaction between target species and fisheries including connectivity among Marine Managed Areas. http://jadran.izor.hr/mantis/index.html
H2020 Research Project MINOUW Applying science, innovation and partnership to reduce discards in European fisheries. http://minouw-project.eu/
ABIOMMED – Support coherent and coordinated assessment of biodiversity and measures across Mediterranean for the next 6-year cycle of the MSFD implementation. https://ec. europa.eu/environment/marine/projects/index_en.htm
Selected Publications
Sbrana, A. et al. (2022). Ask the shark: Blackmouth catshark (galeus melastomus) as a sentinel of plastic waste on the seabed. Marine Biology, 169(7). https://doi.org/10.
1007/s00227-022-04084-1
Maiello, G. et al. (2022). Little samplers, big fleet: eDNA metabarcoding from commercial trawlers enhances ocean monitoring. Fisheries Research, 249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2022.106259
Russo, T. et al. (2022). Defend as you can, react quickly: The effects of the COVID-19 shock on a large fishery of the mediterranean sea. Frontiers in Marine Science, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.824857
Russo, T. et al. (2021). All is fish that comes to the net: Metabarcoding for rapid fisheries catch assessment. Ecological Applications, 31(2). https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2273 D’Andrea, L. et al. (2020). The MINOUWApp: A web-based tool in support of by- catch and discards management. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 192(12). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08704-5
D’Andrea, L. et al.. (2020). smartR: An r package for spatial modelling of fisheries and scenario simulation of management strategies. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 11(7),
859–868. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13394 Mendo, T. et al. (2019). Effect of temporal and spatial resolution on identification of fishing activities in small-scale fisheries using pots and traps. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 76(6), 1601–1609. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsz073
Russo, T. et al. (2019). Predicting fishing footprint of trawlers from environmental and fleet data: An application of artificial neural networks. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00670
Cianchetti-Benedetti, M. et al. (2018). Interactions between commercial fishing vessels and a pelagic seabird in the southern mediterranean sea. BMC Ecology, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-018-0212-x
Amoroso, R. O. et al. (2018). Bottom trawl fishing footprints on the worlds continental shelves. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(43), E10275–E10282. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1802379115
Russo, T. et al. (2018). A model combining landings and VMS data to estimate landings by fishing ground and harbor. Fisheries Research, 199, 218–230. https: //doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2017.11.002
Eigaard, O. R. et al.. (2017). The footprint of bottom trawling in european waters: Distribution, intensity, and seabed integrity. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 74(3), 847–865. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsw194
Russo, T. et al. (2016). Assessing the fishing footprint using data integrated from different tracking devices: Issues and opportunities. Ecological Indicators, 69, 818–827. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.04.043
Russo, T. et al.. (2016). Modeling landings profiles of fishing vessels: An application of self-organizing maps to VMS and logbook data. Fisheries Research, 181, 34–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2016.04.005
Russo, T. et al. (2015). Modelling the strategy of mid-water trawlers targeting small pelagic fish in the adriatic sea and its drivers. Ecological Modelling, 300, 102–113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.12.001
Russo, T. et al. (2014). SMART: A spatially explicit bio-economic model for assessing and managing demersal fisheries, with an application to italian trawlers in the strait of sicily. PLoS ONE, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0086222
Russo, T. et al. (2013). Spatial indicators of fishing pressure: Preliminary analyses and possible developments. Ecological Indicators, 26, 141–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.11.002
Russo, T. et al. (2011). When behaviour reveals activity: Assigning fishing effort to me?tiers based on VMS data using artificial neural networks. Fisheries Research, 111 (1-2), 53–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2011.06.011
Russo, T. et al. (2011). New insights in interpolating fishing tracks from VMS data for different me?tiers. Fisheries Research, 108(1), 184–194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. fishres.2010.12.020
Russo, T. et al. (2009). Le?vy processes and stochastic von bertalanffy models of growth, with application to fish population analysis. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 258(4), 521–529. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2009.01.033