BIOGEOGRAPHIA

For a long time, the knowledge of the marine benthic communities of the Gulf of Taranto, from both floristic and vegetational points of view, has been scarce and incomplete, being this sector of the upper Ionian Sea one of the least studied area of the Central Mediterranean Sea.

The first published papers date back to the end of the nineteenth century (Piccone, 1896) and the beginning of the twentieth one (Bentivoglio, 1903). Afterwards, some papers were published about the seaweeds of the coasts of both the provinces of Taranto (Pierpaoli, 1923; 1959; 1960; Mastrorilli, 1969) and Lecce (Solazzi, 1967; 1968; 1969; Pardi et al., 1988), respectively. However, most of these papers were short notes and reported just very few species. Only starting from the second half of the Eighties, a thorough study of the phytobenthic communities of the coasts near the town of Taranto was planned. Its aim was both to evaluate the effects of urban and industrial pollution and to suggest measures useful to the environmental recovery of particularly polluted areas (i.e. Mar Piccolo, Mar Grande and the waters near the town and the industrial plants) (Cecere et al., 1991a; Cecere et al., 1991b; Cecere et al., 1992; Cecere et al., 1996; Cormaci et al., 2001). The results of this study provided a local baseline and increased the knowledge of the flora of the Mediterranean Sea. However, up to date, the Ionian coasts of Calabria (Cecere and Perrone, 1987) and Basilicata still remain either scarcely or not at all studied.

The present paper aims at defining the marine phytobenthic biodiversity of the Gulf of Taranto, focusing on the presence of recently introduced species.