Census of Marine Malacofauna of the Italian Coasts

Occurrence
Latest version published by National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics on Jan 7, 2026 National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics
Publication date:
7 January 2026
License:
CC-BY 4.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 18,571 records in Italian (947 KB) - Update frequency: unknown
Metadata as an EML file download in English (12 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (10 KB)

Description

The census of the Italian marine malacofauna took shape in 1982 by a group of researchers: Daniele Bedulli, Bruno Dell'Angelo, Piero Piani and Gianni Spada with a publication in the Bollettino di Malacologia (Bedulli D., Dell'Angelo B., Piani P., Spada G. 1982. Project for the census of the Italian marine malacofauna. Bollettino Malacologico, 18, 85-94). Subsequently, Filippo Bassignani, Vincenzo Iacono and Bruno Sabelli collaborated on the project, as well as 93 collectors.

The Census of the Italian Marine Malacofauna was a research project by the S.I.M. (Italian Society of Malacology) coordinated by Prof. D. Bedulli of the Department of Evolutionary and Functional Biology of the University of Parma. The project was conceived to increase and organize knowledge on the distribution of marine molluscs of the Italian coasts. This research was necessary because knowledge on the biogeography of the Mediterranean was quantitatively scarce and highlighted a lack of biogeographic data. The aim of the research was to create a database of marine molluscs present on the Italian coasts and their density. Each piece of data (presence and density of a species) is completed by some environmental parameters (e.g. depth, environment, type of substrate, etc.). The main objective of this census was to study the qualitative composition of the coastal malacocenoses of the Italian peninsula and to determine the biogeographic distribution patterns of the different mollusc species, to identify the Lessepsian migrations and the anthropochoric introductions. The data were obtained through a coordinated system of collectors, as well as using the results of various campaigns conducted by research institutions such as: Universities, ENEA, etc. The data collected were checked by SIM "trustees" especially with regard to the systematics.

These data come from the old ENEA database, managed by the S. Teresa Centre of ENEA, which collected the data of The Census of the Italian Marine Malacofauna.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 18,571 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Occurrence (core)
18571
ExtendedMeasurementOrFact 
37142

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Barsanti, M., Bedulli, D., Dell’Angelo, B., Piani, P., Spada, G., Bassignani, F., Iacono, V., Sabelli, B., & Bruschi, A. (2025). Census of Marine Malacofauna of the Italian Coasts [Dataset]. https://doi.org/10.17882/105381

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has not been registered with GBIF

Keywords

Occurrence; Occurrence

Contacts

Mattia Barsanti
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
ENEA, Centro Ricerche Ambiente Marino S. Teresa
Lerici
La Spezia
IT
Daniele Bedulli
  • Originator
Dipartimento di Biologia Evolutiva e Funzionale dell'Universita' di Parma
Aldo Bruschi
  • Originator
Centro Ricerche Ambiente Marino S. Teresa, ENEA
IT
Filippo Bassignani
  • Originator
Dipartimento di Biologia Evolutiva e Funzionale dell'Universita' di Parma
Bruno Dell' Angelo
  • Originator
Istituto e Museo di Zoologia, Università di Bologna
Vincenzo Iacono
  • Originator
Membro della Società Italiana di Malacologia
Piero Piani
  • Originator
Membro della Società Italiana di Malacologia
Bruno Sabelli
  • Originator
Universita' di Bologna
Gianni Spada
  • Originator
Istituto e Museo di Zoologia, Università di Bologna
Daniele Scarponi
  • Originator
Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche e Ambientali
Bologna
Nikola Holodkov
  • Curator
National Institute for Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS)

Geographic Coverage

Census of Marine Malacofauna of the Italian Coasts

Bounding Coordinates South West [35.246, 5.713], North East [47.695, 19.512]

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 1958-01-20 / 1997-10-17

Project Data

No Description available

Title Census of Marine Malacofauna of the Italian Coasts

The personnel involved in the project:

Mattia Barsanti

Additional Metadata

Acknowledgements

The Census of the Malacofauna of the Italian coasts was possible thanks to: Daniele Bedulli, Bruno Dell'Angelo, Piero Piani, Gianni Spada, Filippo Bassignani, Vincenzo Iacono, Bruno Sabelli and Aldo Bruschi as well as 93 collectors whose names can be consulted within the dataset.

Alternative Identifiers https://nodc.ogs.it/ipt/resource?r=marine_malacofauna_of_the_italian_coasts