Ph. D. Student
Integrative Marine Ecology Department

Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn
Villa Pace, Contrada Porticatello,29
98167 Messina - Italy
Tel.: +39 388 1145929
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Contatto Skype: federica.laface

Internal Supervisor: Teresa Romeo
External Supervisor: Nunziacarla Spanò (UNIME)
Open University, XXXVI cycle

Curriculum Vitae

Research Interests

My research activities focus on the marine litter impact on the marine environment and biodiversity. During these years, I have acquired experience on the application of methodologies for microplastic extraction from marine biota and polymer identification by the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy Technique (FTIR). In particular, my activities aim at studying the plastic’s ingestion in sea turtles, teleost and cartilaginous fishes and in cephalopod molluscs using chemical digestion and visual sorting approaches.
I collaborated with an international research group for a harmonization exercise about microplastics extraction methods from marine biota tissues. During my PhD activities, I’m improving my knowledge about new techniques for microplastics extraction and their identification. At present, moreover, I’m investigating the composition and characterization of floating litter joining in several scientific research campaigns.
My PhD project aim at studying the impact of microplastics pollution in the marine environment testing different methodologies to assess the presence of microplastics and nanoplastics in different biotic and abiotic matrices (floating marine litter, bioindicator species and sediments) through the application of different standardized protocols.

Selected Publications

Schirinzi GF, Pedà C, Battaglia P, Laface F, Galli M, Baini M, Consoli P, Scotti G, Esposito V, Faggio C, Farrè M, Barceló D, Fossi MC, Andaloro F, Romeo T. (2020). A new digestion approach for the extraction of microplastics from gastrointestinal tracts (GITs) of the common dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus) from the western Mediterranean Sea. Journal of Hazardous Materials 397, 122794.

Pedà C, Battaglia P, D’Alessandro M, Laface F, Malara D, Consoli P, Vicchio TM, Longo F, Andaloro F, Baini M, Galli M, Bottari T, Fossi MC, Greco S, Romeo T. (2020). Coupling Gastro-Intestinal Tract Analysis With an Airborne Contamination Control Method to Estimate Litter Ingestion in Demersal Elasmobranchs. Front. Environ. Sci. 8.

Bottari T, Mancuso M, Pedà C, De Domenico F, Laface F, Schirinzi GF, Battaglia P, Consoli P, Spanò N, Greco S, Romeo T. (2022). Microplastics in the bogue, Boops boops: A snapshot of the past from the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. Journal of Hazardous Materials 424, 127669.

Pedà C, Longo F, Berti C, Laface F, De Domenico F, Consoli P, Battaglia P, Greco S, Romeo, T. (2022). The waste collector: information from a pilot study on the interaction between the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris, Cuvier, 1797) and marine litter in bottom traps fishing and first evidence of plastic ingestion. Marine Pollution Bulletin 174, 113185