Research Director
Integrative Marine Ecology Department
Genoa Marine Centre (GMC)
Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn–National Institute of Marine Biology, Ecology and Biotechnology
Villa del Principe, Piazza del Principe 4, 16126 Genoa, Italy
Tel.: +39 081 5833671
E-mail: paolo.guidetti(at)szn.it
Research Director at Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn and Coordinator of the Genoa Marine Centre (GMC). PhD in ‘Fundamental Ecology’ at University of Lecce (Italy).
PI/WP leader of more than 100 national and international projects on marine conservation, marine protected areas, fish ecology and small-scale fisheries.
Author of >180 papers published in international journals (‘Nature’ and ‘Science’ included).
Research Interests
Trained as an experimental marine ecologist, I have embraced marine conservation since long and focused more and more on socio-ecological research in recent years.
Main interests: i) fundamental marine ecology (biodiversity and ecosystem functioning; structure and dynamics of coastal marine populations and communities; marine food-webs and species’ interactions; ecology and biology of fishes; natural history); ii) applied marine ecology and anthropogenic impacts (mechanisms and factors altering biodiversity - e.g., overfishing, noise, pollution, habitat degradation, artificialization, climate change - in a variety of marine ecosystems; sustainable fishing and sea food consumption; invasive species; historical marine ecology); iii) marine conservation and socio-ecology (planetary health; Marine Protected Areas-MPAs; socio-ecological assessments of MPAs; socio-economic and cultural implications of MPAs and small-scale fisheries; environmental ethics, human and nature rights; equity & blue justice; socio-cultural aspects of fish and fisheries; epistemology).
Selected Publications
1. Arrigoni R., Desiderà E., Bava S., Morri C., Bianchi C.N., Guidetti P., 2025. A Peculiar Coral Formation in the Mediterranean Sea, and Its Associated Biota. Ecology 106(6): e70097. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70097
2. Di Lorenzo, M., Calò, A., Di Franco, A., Milisenda G., Aglieri G., Cattano C., Milazzo M., Guidetti P., 2022. Small-scale fisheries catch more threatened elasmobranchs inside partially protected areas than in unprotected areas. Nature Communications, 13, 4381. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32035-3
3. Grorud-Colvert K., Sullivan-Stack J., Roberts C., Constant V., Horta e Costa B., Pike E.P., Kingston N., Laffoley D., Sala E., Claudet G., Friedlander A.M., Gill D.A., Lester S.E., Day J.C., Gonçalves E.J., Ahmadia G.N., Rand M., Villagomez A., Ban N.C., Gurney G.G., Spalding A.K., Bennett N.J., Briggs J., Morgan L.E., Moffitt R., Deguignet M., Pikitch E.K., Darling E.S., Jessen S., Hameed S.O., Di Carlo G., Guidetti P., Harris J.M., Torre J., Kizilkaya Z., Agardy T., Cury P., Shah N.J., Sack K., Cao L., Fernandez M., Lubchenco J., 2021. The MPA Guide: A Framework to Achieve Global Goals for the Ocean. Science, 373: 1-10. DOI: 10.1126/science.abf0861
4. Bennett N.J., Cisneros-Montemayor A.M., Blythe J., Silver J.J., Singh G., Andrews N., Calò A., Christie P., Di Franco A., Finkbeiner E.M., Gelcich S., Guidetti P., Harper S., Hotte N., Kittinger J.N., Le Billon P., Lister J., Lopez de la Lama R., McKinley E., Scholtens J., Solås A.-M., Sowman M., Talloni-Álvarez N., Teh L.C.L, Voyer M., Sumaila U.R., 2019. Towards a sustainable and equitable blue economy. Nature Sustainability, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0404-1
5. Giakoumi S., Scianna C., Plass-Johnson J., Micheli F., Grorud-Colvert K., Thiriet P., Claudet J., Di Carlo G., Di Franco A., Gaines S.D., García-Charton J.A., Lubchenco J., Reimer J., Sala E., Guidetti P., 2017. Ecological effects of full and partial protection in the crowded Mediterranean Sea: a regional meta-analysis. Scientific Reports 7, 8940; doi:10.1038/s41598-017-08850-w
6. Di Franco A., Thiriet P., Di Carlo G., Dimitriadis C., Francour P., Gutiérrez N.L., Jeudy de Grissac A., Koutsoubas D., Milazzo M., del Mar Otero M., Piante C., Plass-Johnson J., Sainz-Trapaga S., Santarossa L., Tudela S., Guidetti P., 2016. Five key attributes can increase marine protected areas performance for small-scale fisheries management. Scientific Reports 6, 38135; doi: 10.1038/srep38135.
7. Guidetti P., Baiata P., Ballesteros E., Di Franco A., Hereu B., Macpherson E., Micheli F., Pais A., Panzalis P.A., Rosenberg A.A., Zabala M., Sala E., 2014. Large-scale assessment of Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas effects on fish assemblages. PLoS ONE, 9(4): e91841. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0091841.
8. Claudet J., Guidetti P., 2010. Fishermen contribute to protection of marine reserves. Nature 464: 673.
9. Guidetti P., Milazzo M., Bussotti S., Molinari A., Murenu M., Pais A., Spanò N., Balzano R., Agardy T., Boero F., Carrada G., Cattaneo-Vietti R., Cau A., Chemello R., Greco S., Manganaro A., Notarbartolo di Sciara G., Russo G.F., Tunesi L., 2008. Italian marine reserve effectiveness: does enforcement matter? Biological Conservation, 141: 699-709.
10. Guidetti P., 2006. Marine reserves reestablish lost predatory interactions and cause community changes in rocky reefs. Ecological Applications, 16 (3): 963-976.
