Time: 14:30, July 15, 2016

Venue: Room 506, Museum for Aquatic Organisms

Speaker: Federico Rossi  (Department of AgrifoodProductions and the Environment, University of Florence.Italy) 

Title: The role of exopolysaccharides in complexcommunities growing in extreme environments 

Introduction to the Speaker:   
I graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of Florence in 2006. I earned my PhD in Agricultural Microbial Biotechnology in 2011 at theUniversity of Florence with Professor De Philippis as a tutor.I am currently a post-doc researcher at the Department of AgrifoodProductions and the Environment, University of Florence, Italy. I started working on exopolysaccharides from cyanobacteria in 2008, tostudy their features and their role. Afterwards, I started investigatingthe role of EPSs in complex phototrophic communities living in extremehabitats like monuments' exposed surfaces and deserts. The researchexplored the relations between EPSs and water relations in BSCs, inimportant processes at an ecological level.  

Speaker: Gianmarco Mugnai (Department of AgrifoodProductions and the Environment, University of Florence.Italy)  

Title: The role of cyanobacterial EPSs in the developmentof aquatic and terrestrial phototrophic communities