The EMPHASIS project focuses on the ecomorphology of the feeding apparatus of Notothenioidea, a suborder of teleost fishes endemic to the Southern Ocean that have colonized available ecological niches and habitats during their adaptive radiation. Ecomorphology is the science that investigates the reciprocal relationship between the environment and the forms of organisms, allowing insights into their evolutionary history, biodiversity, and relationships between form and function. The research activity involves a comparative analysis of the feeding apparatus in species representative of various phyletic lineages, and the study of the relationships between morphology, function and specific performance during feeding. Based on the results of the analysis, three-dimensional digitally supported models of the structures involved in feeding activity was developed.

The current vision of global climatic changes stresses on the interlinked action of many factors, often more evident at regional scales. Polar regions are among the areas most sensitive to perturbations of the climate: through connections involving ocean, atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and cryosphere, they respond to, amplify, and drive changes elsewhere in the Earth system, so that understanding their role is essential. Peculiar characteristics of Polar Regions contribute to modify the energy and radiation budget, and the characteristics of the polar atmospheric boundary layer (ABL), increasing relevance at regional level of coupling processes between components of the climate system, especially in the coastal region. In particular, the long polar night, the sea-ice and snow coverage, favouring the persistency of stable atmospheric conditions, and the local and mesoscale circulation interactions, all affect the status and variability at different time scales of components of the regional climate system. Predicting future conditions of the polar regions is the goal of the Polar Prediction Project and of one of its key elements, the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP, http://www.polarprediction.net/yopp.html), scheduled to take place from mid-2017 to mid-2019). This requires the scientific knowledge of their present status as well as a process-based understanding of the mechanisms of change. The parameterization of physical processes in regional and global hydrodynamical numerical models of the atmosphere is not yet enough accurate for a correct representation of all components of the climatic system and of their connections, the knowledge of which is needed to determine the role of polar regions in the global climate. As an example, more extended and integrated dataset are required to improve the parameterization of the ABL, for complex orography areas such as the polar coastal regions. The general scope of this project is to improve the understanding of the surface-atmosphere mass and energy exchanges at an Antarctic coastal site in the Ross Sea through continuous and accurate measurements of the atmospheric parameters, and development and verification of multiscale modelling, and through these activities, to address some of the relevant questions included in the roadmap for Antarctic and Southern Ocean science for the next two decades and beyond. Measurements will be carried out year-round at the new Korean Jang Bogo Antarctic Research Station (JBS), located at the coast of Terra Nova Bay, in the vicinity of the Italian Mario Zucchelli Station. Measurement and analysis of radiation components, atmospheric constituents and energy fluxes, meteorological and micrometeorological parameters, will be implemented jointly by Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), CNR and UNIFI, in a way similar to the collaboration already active in the Arctic. Such implementation will be very useful to close a gap in the global climate observation system (GCOS) and contribute to WMO programs providing scientific data and information on meteorological and radiation regimes, vertical structure and chemical composition of the atmosphere.

The datataset includes sound pressure levels acquired in the Ross Sea during project AMORS

Calibrated (in unit of solar disk brightness) measurements of the sky brightness at DOME C as obtained by the ESCAPE experiment during the campaign 2019-2020

Terra Nova Bay (Ross Sea, Antarctica), characterized by a moltitude of ice tongues flowing from land to sea, represents an ideal study site for understanding the complex interaction between relative sea level variations and ice sheet dynamics during the Holocene. The DISGELI project, thanks to the combination of innovative technology and traditional methods for geomorphologic and stratigraphic analysis, aims to: i) reconstruct the local variations of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet after the Last Glacial Maximum; ii) provide a time constrain for the deglaciation processes along the coast; iii) reconstruct, with unprecedent detail, the relative sea level variations during Holocene in the Drygalski basin. The morpho-bathymetric and topographic data obtained through this study will be integrated using digital terrain models based on the analyses of key areas onland, where palaeo-coastlines and sea-level markers have been identified.

Calibrated (in unit of solar disk brightness) measurements of the sky brightness at DOME C as obtained by the ESCAPE experiment during the campaign 2018-2019

The dataset contains 500-2000 MHz brightness temperature measurements gathered by the Ultra-Wideband Software Defined Microwave Radiometer (UWBRAD) during the Ice Sheet and Sea Ice Airborne Microwave eXperiment (ISSIUMAX) in Terra Nova Bay, Antarctica. The published dataset is in ascii format and consists of geolocated nadiral brightness temperature measurements collected over 12 sub-bands whose central frequencies are 560, 660, 820, 900, 1180, 1240, 1370, 1500, 1630, 1740, 1860, and 1950 MHz. Only measurements with a viewing angle within 5 deg with respect to nadir are reported.

Anthropogenic microparticles (AMs) were found for the first time in specimens of Trematomus bernacchii collected in 1998 in the Ross Sea (Antarctica) and stored in the Antarctic Environmental Specimen Bank. Most of the identified AMs were fibers of natural and synthetic origin. The natural AMs were cellulosic, the synthetic ones were polyester, polypropylene, polypropylene/polyester, and cellulose acetate. The presence of dyes in the natural AMs indicates their anthropogenic origin. Five industrial dyes were identified by Raman spectroscopy with Indigo occurring in most of them (55%). Our research not only adds further data to the ongoing knowledge of pollution levels in the Antarctic ecosystem, it provides an interesting snapshot of the past, highlighting that microplastics and anthropogenic fiber pollution had already entered the Antarctic marine food web at the end of the ‘90 s. These findings therefore establish the foundations for understand the changes in marine litter pollution over time.

Trophic interactions underlie coexistence mechanisms between species and affect biodiversity and heavy metal bioaccumulation processes. Sea ice dynamics, which at Terra Nova Bay is characterized by an extraordinary seasonality, drives interspecific interactions. Indeed, the activation of the primary production after sea-ice break up opens alternative trophic pathways for consumers. By means of C and N stable isotope analyses, the present project aims at (i) determining food web structure at Terra Nova Bay at different bathymetries and in opposite sea-ice cover conditions; (ii) evaluating heavy metal bioaccumulation in species along food chains, including fish of commercial interests, both in the presence and absence of photosynthetic primary producers. The hypothesis to be tested is if the activation of primary producers following sea-ice break up significantly modifies the food web structure and stability against species loss, as well as heavy metals concentration along food chains. Data on Antarctic food webs are scarce, and even scarcer is our knowledge on mechanisms of primary and secondary biodiversity loss and biomagnification processes in invertebrates and fish. The present research project will shed light on mechanisms underlying biodiversity maintenance in the Antarctic ecosystem and on risks for human health related to heavy metals accumulation in fish species currently or potentially exploited commercially, also in light of expected changes in the extension of sea ice cover. A valuable reference baseline will be established for future studies at the Italian Antarctic Station and for the Marine Protected Area in the Ross Sea.

Concentrations of major, minor and trace elements in particulate matter (PM10) samples, collected at Concordia with monthly time resolution, since January 2018, obtained by PIXE-PIGE and HR-ICP-MS measurements.