In memory of Marino Vacchi

On 11 June, at the age of 74, Marino Vacchi passed away in Genoa. He was a fine ichthyologist, an accurate researcher, trained at the Genoese school of Italian marine biology.

Marino, under the guidance of Dino Levi, and together with Alvaro Abella, Patrizia Jereb, Sergio Ragonese and Franco Andaloro, has established at the CNR of Mazara del Vallo one of the founding nuclei of the biology of Italian fisheries, developing since 1985 the approaches based on experimental fishing campaigns, trawl surveys, and population dynamics to assess the state of demersal resources of Italian fisheries.

One of his first works in Mazara on the sexual maturity of the red shrimp Aristaeomorpha foliacea in the Strait of Sicily, written together with Dino Levi, but in which the scientific background gained in Genoa is recognizable, is still a useful reference for the subject in the Mediterranean. He participated in the first fishing campaigns in the Strait of Sicily since the spring of 1985, contributing to the establishment of the historical series on the distribution, abundance and demography of demersal resources among the most important in the Mediterranean. Another founding nucleus, more oriented towards pelagic resources and fishing technology, was that of Ancona. Both sites, merged into the Institute for Biological Resources and Marine Biotechnology (IRBIM), are currently the cornerstones of fisheries sciences in the Mediterranean.

The experience gained in Mazara del Vallo in this first phase of his professional career has provided Marino with an important opportunity to deepen the knowledge on elasmobranchs already gained since the time of his degree thesis on a small bathyal shark, Etmopterus spinax. Over time, Marino has become one of the leading experts on elasmobranchs in the Mediterranean. He was co-author of the Italian RedList of cartilaginous fishes, gave his fundamental contribution to the compilation of the checklist of chondroichthys of the Italian seas and contributed to the conservation actions of these fish vulnerable to fishing pressure under the aegis of the International Union for the Conservation of the Nature (IUCN).

After leaving the CNR, he worked at ICRAM, participating since the first expeditions in the National Research Program in Antarctica and actively participating in the study of the biology of Antarctic organisms, with particular reference to fish, also in collaboration with researchers from the Ancona office of CNR IRBIM. In recent years Marino has worked as a CNR associate at the Institute for the Study of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in the Marine Environment (IAS) in Genoa. Driven by a genuine naturalistic curiosity and a deep love for the sea, in addition to these important specific lines of research that have seen him as a protagonist, Marino collaborated with numerous researchers from different disciplines all related to marine biology and ecology, as evidenced by his vast scientific and popular production.

With his passing, we have lost a colleague capable of both accurate specialist investigations and multidisciplinary approaches to the dynamics of marine ecosystems.

Written by Pietro Rizzo, Fabrizio Serena, Sergio Vitale, Fabio Fiorentino

19.06.2024 - Mazara del Vallo