Outreach

Where the work travelled

Around a hundred press items in six languages, and almost all of them come from five findings. This is where they went.

Coverage

  1. 2026

    A DNA barcode library for European ants

    6,530 sequences across 506 species, 209 of them sequenced for the first time.

    • Quotidiano Nazionale
    1 outlets

  2. 2023–25

    The red fire ant, established in Europe

    Eighty-eight nests near Syracuse: the first population of Solenopsis invicta found established in Europe. The paper also models where else the climate would suit it.

    CNN · November 2025 · interactiveA deadly fire ant has reached European shoresA long-form piece on the Sicilian population and the eradication effort. I contributed to the reporting.Read the interactive European Parliament · September 2023A question to the CommissionTabled after the Sicily paper, asking what the Commission intended to do.Question E-002758/2023
    27 outlets

  3. 2022

    The Asian needle ant, first in Europe

    Brachyponera chinensis recorded in Europe for the first time. A later paper followed it spreading in Italy.

    • La Vanguardia
    • Telecinco
    • Europa Press
    • EFE Verde
    • Ara
    • ScienceDaily
    • RiffReporter
    • +6
    13 outlets

  4. 2016

    Alien flatworms in a Bologna garden

    The first European record of the land planarian Diversibipalium multilineatum. Part of the coverage turned it into an indestructible killer worm, and a good deal of what followed was correcting that.

    15 outlets

  5. 2016

    An alien nematode on Montecristo

    An alien isolate of the nematode Oscheius tipulae in the integral nature reserve on Montecristo.

    3 outlets

  6. 2013

    How a crested porcupine defends itself

    Four defensive displays of Hystrix cristata against hunting dogs, of which tail rattling alone is usually enough. Also the first reported cases of porcupines killing a carnivore: four young foxes and badgers, all near the den.

    5 outlets

  7. 2012–16

    Grey squirrels, free-ranging cats, island butterflies

    The first papers, and a local press angle about a twenty-three-year-old paying for his own fieldwork.

    7 outlets

Broadcast

Public talks

The one that was not research

Wasp is artA colony of paper wasps, coloured construction paper, and a nest that ended up recording what they were given. The sequence as it was built, and the twenty-nine outlets that picked it up.