University of Salento leads Arctic climate study on crustacean

Researchers from the University of Salento are coordinating an international project in the Svalbard archipelago to examine how climate change alters the seasonal biology of the crustacean Lepidurus arcticus. The study, titled “Light, Time, Clock and Clime,” is funded by the Research Council of Norway and involves partners from UNIS, the Arctic University of Norway, the University of Copenhagen, the University of Jyväskylä and Sapienza University of Rome. Professor Vittorio Pasquali serves as principal investigator. Italian Carabinieri personnel from the Command Unit for Forest, Environmental and Agro‑Food Protection support field operations, handling sample collection and environmental measurements.

The goal is to understand how rising temperatures and changing ice cover disrupt the organism’s internal biological clock, which regulates dormancy and emergence cycles critical to Arctic food webs. Findings are expected to improve predictive models of ecosystem responses to warming in polar regions.