Studio della biologia, morfologia ed ecologia di tre popolazioni di testuggine palustre siciliana Emys trinacris (Fritz et al., 2005) : valutazione della presenza di lantanidi e caratterizzazione genetica

Emys trinacris, in Sicily is still present in a number of wetlands, with populations that are sometimes different from each other, on morphometric characters (Fritz et al., 2006) so as to suggest a survey designed to determine the causes of this variability. This study, with a multidisciplinary approach, took the moves from an examination of morphometric characters of the species under investigation in three distinct sites (Chapter 1), which in the past had found some morphometric variability (Fritz et al., 2006). He then went looking for reasons which justify the observed variability and has tried to do it with a genetic approach (Chapter 3), using the study of the chemistry of the ecosystem (Chapter 2). To conduct this part of the study it was decided to use the lanthanides, chemical elements that are, on the one hand due to the characteristics of human pressure areas investigated, and the other able to be accumulated within the tissues of the organisms studied.