On the 29^th January 2016, the ESENIAS-TOOLS participant PhD student Alice Cardeccia defended successfully her PhD thesis entitled:

‘Non-Indigenous Aquatic Species: Biological Traits Connected To Invasiveness’

at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.

Her tutor was Prof. Anna Occhipinti-Ambrogi, and cotutors: Dr. Agnese Marchini and T. Trichkova.

The second chapter of the thesis was devoted to ‘Case study: Dreissena polymorpha in the Bulgarian inland water bodies - population structure and relation to environmental parameters’. The main aims of this study were:

(1) the analysis of the population structure in different sites in Bulgaria, in order to evaluate the establishment status of the translocated species D. polymorpha in terms of population density and reproductive capability; and

(2) the identification of environmental variables characterising invaded sites and, within these invaded sites, environmental conditions determining the achievement of high population densities.

The presented analyses and results are part of the ESENIAS-TOOLS project Case study 1: Biological and ecological traits of invasive alien freshwater mussels in Bulgaria (within bi-lateral cooperation Bulgaria – Italy).