ITALIAN BRACKISH AND MARINE OSTRACOD FAUNA

In the literature, there are many studies concerning ostracods in the Italian seas. Among the most relevant are the evergreen monograph of Müller (1894) about the ostracods from the Gulf of Naples, the publications of BONADUCE et al., 1976 and BREMAN,1976 about the Adriatic Sea, PURI et al., 1964, again about the Gulf of Naples and BONADUCE et al., 1977 about the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. In addition, different authors centered their research in smaller areas of the Italian coasts (MONTENEGRO et al., 1998; SCIUTO & ROSSO, 2002; ARBULLA et al., 2004; SCIUTO, in progress;) proposed a synthesis of the most abundant and more easily identifiable ostracods from the Italian shelves, linking their occurrence to some environmental factors such as bathymetry and substrate. Ten different ostracod assemblages were observed in relation to the type of substrate, and nine bathymetric assemblages were detected. Evident changes of the autochthonous ostracod fauna were recorded at 50-60 m, 90-100 m and 125-150 m, corresponding to the infralittoral-circalittoral, inner-middle circalittoral and middle-outer circalittoral boundaries respectively. More recently, AIELLO & BARRA (2010) have published a checklist of the Italian marine ostracods, reporting 377 ostracod species from the screening of 84 papers. In this contribution, we present an updated database of the ostracod species pertaining to the infralittoral and circalittoral zones, together with those occurring in lagoon, intertidal, submarine cave and deep water settings. Furthermore, we intend to highlight the links between the ostracod assemblages...