XXXVII CICLO | Pardo Claudio

I’m interested in the ecology and conservation of reptiles and amphibians. In both my B.Sc. and M.Sc. I’ve studied the phylogeography of European vipers and behavioural syndromes in geckos. During my college, I have participated in research projects related to the ecology and life history of salamanders, newts, frogs (native and invasive), and lizards. My PhD project focuses on the potentials of parthenogenetic invertebrates to become models for the biomonitoring of the effects of anthropogenic pollution on wildlife.

The research project aims to study the applicability and use of parthenogenetic organisms for the biomonitoring of environmental pollution. Animals will be used, specifically stick insects (Bacillus rossius), taken from areas of high naturalness, which will then be bred in order to obtain characterised parthenogenetic lines. The work plan envisages a first phase of in vitro assays and then an in vivo experiment. The analysis methods will be molecular in nature and will involve the analysis and comparison of genetic damage, oxidative stress and differential gene expression between the treated and control groups. If the results confirm the differences between the groups and the correlation of biological damage with levels of environmental pollution, it will be possible to confirm the usability of the stick insect (B. rossius) as a sentinel organism for environmental pollution.

• Berrilli, E., Gambioli, B., Bombi, P., Garzia, M., Muraro, M., Pardo, C., Reale, M., Sherpa, S., Ficetola, G. F., Vignoli, L., & Salvi, D. (2024). Subspecies inflation hampers conservation efforts: A case study on wall lizards. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, blae001. 

• Cerini, F., Pardo, C., Taurozzi, D., Gambioli, B., & Vignoli, L. (2023). Mutual Avoidance in the Spectacled Salamander and Centipede: A Discrepancy between Exploratory Field and Laboratory Data. Animals, 13(20), 3214. 

• Muraro, M., Sherpa, S., Barzaghi, B., Bombi, P., Borgatti, D., Di Canio, V., Dalpasso, A., Falaschi, M., Gambioli, B., Manenti, R., Marta, S., Momigliano, P., Nanni, V., Pardo, C., Parrino, E. L., Scali, S., Storniolo, F., Vignoli, L., Zuffi, M. A. L., … Ficetola, G. F. (2022). Condition- and context-dependent variation of sexual dimorphism across lizard populations at different spatial scales. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 16969.