Marco Ferrante

During my PhD, I developed the use of artificial caterpillars to quantify predation rates and investigated the effects of urbanisation and integrated pest management strategies (IPM) on vertebrate and invertebrate predators activity. I also co-authored the first review of the sentinel prey method to assess predation (Lövei & Ferrante 2017, Insect Science). I collaborated in the Amiga project (“Assessing and Monitoring the Impacts of Genetically Modified Plants on Agro-ecosystems”) aimed to develop standardised protocols and monitoring tools for post-market environmental monitoring of GM crops, in the PURE project aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of IPM practices to reduce dependence on pesticides, and in the IPM4Meligethes project aimed to develop IPM strategies to control pollen beetles in oilseed rape crop.

Between Oct 2018-Oct 2019, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel. I investigated the effects of recent (2014) and past (1975) oil spills on both the arthropod community and on some of the ecosystem functions provided by arthropods in a hyper-arid desert ecosystem (Evrona Nature Reserve).