Disney Science in Comics: Genetics and Evolution

Dr. Silvia Bencivelli

Piero Genovesi holds a PhD in animal ecology. Since May 2014, he has been the head of the Wildlife Advisory Service at the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA). In 2017, he became Head of the Area for Wildlife Management and Conservation at ISPRA. He is the chair of the IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group and serves as a Research Associate with Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and as an International Science Advisor for the Centre for Invasion Biology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Piero Genovesi’s work spans several areas of conservation biology, including the ecology and conservation of carnivores, wildlife translocation, biodiversity monitoring, and invasive species. In his work on carnivore ecology, he supervised the reintroduction of brown bears to the Italian Alps and coordinated the publication of national action plans for the conservation of wolves, brown bears, and otters, commissioned by the Italian Ministry of Environment. He is an active member of the International Association for Bear Research and Management, having served as Vice President for many years.

Regarding translocations, Piero Genovesi coordinated the establishment of national guidelines on animal translocations in 1996, followed by guidelines for the translocation of species of community interest in 2007. He was also part of the SSC task force that produced the IUCN Guidelines on Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations, adopted by IUCN in 2012. From 2011 to 2014, he led the preparation of the national 3rd Report under Article 17 of the Habitat Directive, coordinating a group of 73 authors and over 100 experts. Piero Genovesi is particularly active within IUCN, serving on the Steering Committee of the Species Survival Commission since 2013 and formerly on the Red List Committee.

His primary area of focus is invasive species and related policy-making. He co-authored the European Strategy on Invasive Alien Species, adopted by the Council of Europe in 2003. Since then, he has published numerous papers on invasion patterns and responses to this threat, including articles and commentaries in high-ranking journals such as Science, Nature, PNAS, PLoS, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environments, Conservation Biology, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, and Global Change Biology.

In the field of invasive species, Piero Genovesi collaborates closely with major international institutions, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the European Union, the Bern Convention, the European Environment Agency, and the Convention on Migratory Species. He is a member of the Liaison Group on Invasive Alien Species of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which includes key international standard-setting organizations. More recently, he is a founding member of the Steering Committee of the Global Invasive Alien Species Information Partnership (GIASIP), launched by the Convention on Biological Diversity.

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