Census of Marine Malacofauna of the Italian Coasts

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.