The lack of young people engaged in agriculture threatens future food security and social balance. The agricultural sector and rural areas are experiencing an aging demography. The data confirm the global historical trend of a shortage of young people deciding to pursue careers in agriculture and remaining in rural spaces. Understanding young people’s views on agriculture is the key to supporting their participation in the sector by examining the unattractive factors that influence their perceptions. This study aims to explore these factors through a literature review of the past 10 years, applying the PRISMA model. We used VOSviewer to identify the key elements linked in a co-word map and revealed four clusters that mainly influence young people’s perceptions. The reviewed papers are from developed and developing countries, as our approach seeks to transcend the national boundaries that often delimit analyses on generational renewal. The study brings out the common factors that affect youth’s choice in agriculture, highlighting their perceptions and aspirations. The discussions and conclusion aim to provide a different perspective to understand the decision-making process of young people toward an agricultural career.

We investigated the presence and diversity of cetaceans in the Mediterranean Sea, analysing the data collected by 32 different research units, over a period of 15 years (2004–2018), and shared on the common web-GIS platform named Intercet. We used the encounter rate, the species prevalence, and the Shannon diversity index as parameters for data analysis. The results show that cetacean diversity, in the context of the Mediterranean basin, is generally quite low when compared with the eastern Atlantic, as few species, namely the striped dolphin, the bottlenose dolphin, the fin whale, and the sperm whale, dominate over all the others. However, some areas, such as the Alboran Sea or the north-western Mediterranean Sea, which includes the Pelagos Sanctuary (the Specially Protected Area of Mediterranean Interest located in the northern portion of the western basin), show higher levels of diversity and should be considered hotspots to be preserved. Primary production and seabed profile seem to be the two main drivers influencing the presence and distribution of cetaceans, with the highest levels of diversity observed in areas characterized by high levels of primary production and high bathymetric variability and gradient. This collective work underlines the importance of data sharing to deepen our knowledge on marine fauna at the scale of the whole Mediterranean Sea and encourages greater efforts in the networking process, also to accomplish the requirements of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, with particular reference to Descriptor 1: biological diversity is maintained.

This case study of the Mediterranean extra virgin olive oil value chain aims to contribute empirical evidence to incorporating the agrobiodiversity concept within mechanisms for value enhancement of origin products, within sustainable local value chains, via building a community around products. The tools and mechanisms for market competitiveness and product differentiation of quality origin products are illustrated, contributing to food systems’ transition towards sustainable development. Our analysis provides three stages of community building around the sustainable, local product: (1) The product positioning phase: all the activities chosen by the producer for the agricultural production, processing, and marketing for value enhancement; all the activities performed before the consumer encounters the product. (2) The consumer attraction phase: the moment when the consumer becomes familiarized with the product; the phase where the institutional capital plays an important role, as often the producers enter markets supported by different groups, networks, or institutions with which they partner. (3) Communities of value co-creation: the final stage of consumer engagement with the product. Communities of value connecting individuals through similar values of sustainability, agrobiodiversity, defending and respecting the environment, and tasty, nutritious food, are substantial components for the transition towards more sustainable origin food systems.

Fisheries products are some of the most traded commodities world-wide and the potential for fraud is a serious concern. Fish fraud represents a threat to human health and poses serious concerns due to the consumption of toxins, highly allergenic species, contaminates or zoonotic parasites, which may be present in substituted fish. The substitution of more expensive fish by cheaper species, with similar morphological characteristics but different origins, reflects the need for greater transparency and traceability upon which which the security of the entire seafood value-chain depends. Even though EU regulations have made significant progress in consumer information by stringent labelling requirements, fraud is still widespread. Many molecular techniques such as DNA barcoding provide valuable support to enhance the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in the protection of consumer interests by unequivocally detecting any kind of fraud. This paper aims to highlight both the engagement of EU fishery policy and the opportunity offered by new biotechnology instruments to mitigate the growing fraud in the globalized fish market and to enforce the food security system to protect consumers’ health. In this paper, after a presentation of EU rules on fish labeling and a general overview on the current state of the global fish market, we discuss the public health implications and the opportunities offered by several techniques based on genetics, reporting a case study to show the efficacy of the DNA barcoding methodology in assessing fish traceability and identification, comparing different species of the Epinephelus genus, Mottled Grouper (Mycteroperca rubra) and Wreckfish (Polyprion americanus), often improperly sold with the commercial name of “grouper”.

The current study provides new data on the known records of the Atlantic blue crab, Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896, from the Maltese Islands through two ovigerous female specimens collected from Salini (Malta), a Natura 2000 site, in August 2020. Additional new records of the species were also presented from the San Leonardo River estuary, Syracuse (Sicily, Italy), in August 2022. The specimens collected from both Malta and Sicily were identified using both morphological and molecular analyses. The latter has shown that all the specimens analysed share their mitochondrial DNA barcode region with the most recorded haplotype of the same species from the Mediterranean Sea. Knowing the new distribution and range expansion records of alien species is important for the continuous monitoring of marine alien species, which is essential for the implementation of the best possible mitigation measures. This is especially relevant for C. sapidus, as it is considered one of the worst invaders of the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore, given that this alien species is edible, fishing for it may allow some control over its population size and further expansion. Knowing its distribution is crucial to inform fishers about its exact location, making such a mitigation measure more effective.

Cetacean bycatch is increasing worldwide and poses a threat to the conservation of several delphinids. The bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is frequently involved in bycatch incidents, due to its coastal distribution and opportunistic behaviour. The acoustic behaviour of cetaceans during death-related events is a largely unexplored topic. During an acoustic monitoring survey of the bottlenose dolphin population inhabiting the Gulf of Catania (Ionian Sea), we documented the entangling and subsequent death of a sub-adult male in a fishing net. Here, we provide a detailed analysis of the vocal behaviour of the pod of bottlenose dolphins during the event. We identified a total of 720 vocalisations in a timespan of 138 min, including 436 signature whistles, 51 non-signature whistles, and 233 burst pulses. We recorded high vocal activity, with a peak characterised by emission rates of 36 signature whistles per minute and 70 burst pulses per minute. Although future studies are required, our results show massive vocal activity during net entangling, characterised by a significant emission of signature whistles and burst pulses, including bray series of gulps and squeaks. Therefore, we suggest that developing tools for automatically detecting the peaks of these sound types could be helpful in recognising bycatch events, in order to better quantify the impact of professional fishing on small cetaceans.