BENTHIC FORAMINIFERA AS BIOINDICATORS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY STATUS OF MARINE HABITATS: DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES AND APPLICATIONS

The increasing pollution is damaging aquatic ecosystems worldwide and threatening our health. In this scenario, assessing the human impact becomes a crucial and compelling topic. The application of bioindicators is essential for assessing the environmental conditions of an ecosystem. In this thesis, benthic foraminifera, single cell organisms that can construct a hard test (i.e., shell), have been used as bioindicators through different techniques. Benthic foraminifera, widely used as an environmental proxy, can reveal important information about the present ecological quality status (EcoQS) analysing their living assemblages. This technique is discussed in Chapter 2 of this PhD thesis, where the morphological approach is applied, together with the innovative metabarcoding, to the heavily polluted site of Bagnoli. Thanks to their fossilization potential, analysing the fossil records they can also be used in paleoenvironmental reconstructions (as discussed in Chapters 3, 4 and 5 of this PhD thesis). In particular, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 are dedicated to the paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the coastal area of Bagnoli, while in Chapter 5 the study is about the continental shelf of the Gulf of Gaeta. The application of benthic foraminifera as an environmental proxy has confirmed to be a great and innovative approach, with wide and flexible techniques, for evaluating the degree and the spatial/temporal variations of the anthropogenic impact on marine habitats.