Forschen und Sammeln.

The Pennsylvanian flora from the Italian Carnic Alps, stored in the Museo Friulano di Storia Naturale in Udine, Italy, was revised taxonomically. Plant fossils come from the Bombaso Formation and Pramollo (Auernig) Group (Late Pennsylvanian) that correspond to the lower part of the paralic to shallow marine Carboniferous–Permian Pramollo (or Pramollo-Nasfeld) Basin succession. Most of the ~2500 studied plant fossils and also the highest number of species come from the the Bombaso, Meledis and Pizzul formations, whereas the middle and upper part of the Pramollo Group in the Italian Carnic Alps yielded only few plant remains, contrarily to the successions on the Austrian side. In total 73 plant taxa have been identified, which represent about 59 biological species. The ferns, especially marattialen ferns, are the most diverse plant group (33 species in total) followed by pteridosperms (15 species). The stratigraphic range of the Bombaso Formation and the Pramollo Group have been re-evaluated based on presence of stratigraphically important species from both the Italian and Austrian parts of the Carnic Alps. The studied interval ranges from a middle Barruelian to middle Stephanian B sensu Wagner and Álvarez-Vázquez (2010a) and spans about 3.5 Ma. The diversity of the Carnic Alps flora is comparable with well-documented contemporaneous floras in NW Spain, French Massif Central and the Czech Republic. Floral richness and diversity together with intercalations of plant-rich horizons with fossiliferous marine limestone bands makes the Carnic Alps a potential candidate as a stratigraphically important reference section for non-marine to marine correlations.

The freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbii Lankester 1880 is a cryptic cosmopolitan invasive species, which occurs in all continents except Antarctica. Recent molecular studies suggest the existence of at least three very different genetic lineages of Craspedacusta: the “sowerbii”, the “kiatingi”, and the “sinensis” lineages. We report the presence of both medusae and polyps of this alien taxon in the Large Lake of Monticolo / Montiggl, a meso-eutrophic natural lake in the Province of Bolzano / Bozen in Northern Italy. Molecular analyses of mitochondrial 16S sequences showed that this population belongs to a different lineage than that recently described for Sicily (Southern Italy). Therefore, there are two different genetic lineages of C. sowerbii in Italy. In the Large Lake of Monticolo / Montiggl medusae were observed in 6 consecutive summers (2015–2020), from July to September. All the examined medusae were males. The stomach content analyses showed that zooplanktonic copepods and cladocerans with size range between 0.3 and 0.8 mm were the preferred prey of medusae. Polyps of C. sowerbii were recorded in the lake on the zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha in shallow water and on the underside of artificial substrates. The analyses of zebra mussels would therefore be a simple method to check for the presence of the polyp stage of C. sowerbii in various aquatic environments.

The Carnian Pluvial Episode (Late Triassic) was a time of global environmental changes and possibly substantial coeval volcanism. The extent of the biological turnover in marine and terrestrial ecosystems is not well understood. Here, we present a meta-analysis of fossil data that suggests a substantial reduction in generic and species richness and the disappearance of 33% of marine genera. This crisis triggered major radiations. In the sea, the rise of the first scleractinian reefs and rock-forming calcareous nannofossils points to substantial changes in ocean chemistry. On land, there were major diversifications and originations of conifers, insects, dinosaurs, crocodiles, lizards, turtles, and mammals. Although there is uncertainty on the precise age of some of the recorded biological changes, these observations indicate that the Carnian Pluvial Episode was linked to a major extinction event and might have been the trigger of the spectacular radiation of many key groups that dominate modern ecosystems.