Site description
The Gulf of Naples is a densely populated coastal region that represents a mosaic of environmental conditions, including highly polluted sites (e.g., the Sarno River mouth, harbours, Bagnoli-Coroglio) as well as pristine environments, some of which are established as Marine Protected Areas
The Long-Term Ecological Research site MareChiara (LTER-MC) is located 2 nautical miles offshore from the city of Naples (40°48.5’N, 14°15’E), at a depth of about 75 m, at the boundary between eutrophic coastal waters, influenced by land runoff, and the oligotrophic offshore waters of the southern Tyrrhenian Sea.
The LTER-MC station hosts one of the longest plankton time series in the Mediterranean Sea. The dataset collected at the LTER-MC site since 1984 includes physical, chemical, and biological variables (chlorophyll a, phytoplankton, and mesozooplankton). A number of other variables have been added over the years, including pigment spectra and bacteria, and picoplankton by flow cytometry.
Since 2006, LTER-MC has been part of the national (LTER-Italy) and international (I-LTER and eLTER-Europe) networks of Long-Term Ecological Research sites (https://deims.org/0b87459a-da3c-45af-a3e1-cb1508519411). In 2025, LTER-Italy was formally constituted as the Joint Research Unit eLTER-IT, with the aim of contributing to the construction of the European Research Infrastructure eLTER RI.
Omics activities at the site
First metabarcoding studies at the LTER-MC site began in the early 2000s, when new molecular technologies became available for marine research. These approaches marked the start of omics-based investigations of marine biodiversity at the site. In March 2019, LTER-MC became part of the NEREA Observatory (Naples Ecological Research Augmented Observatory), an integrated ecological research system that includes two additional sites: the mouth of the Sarno River and the Dohrn Canyon off Capri. Since January 2024, omics activities have also been carried out at LTER-MC as part of The Italian Omics Observatory Network of Marine Biodiversity, within the framework of the National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC).
