Researcher
Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms (BEOM)

Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn
Villa Comunale
80121 Napoli - Italia

E-mail: francesca.raffini(at)szn.it
Skype: francesca-raffini
Twitter: @FraRaff_Delfina

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=AgsXDnoAAAAJ&hl=it

ERC sectors - Evolutionary genetics (LS8_7), Behavioural ecology and evolution (LS8_11)

Settori scientifico-disciplinari - Zoologia (BIO/05), Genetica (BIO/18)

Curriculum Vitae

Research Interests

I am an evolutionary biologist interested in understanding how biological and environmental processes, within and among populations or species, generate astonishing diversity at different levels of biological organization. I am currently focused on investigating the “behavioural dimension” of evolution: how do behavioural traits emerge, change and contribute to individual, population and species’ fitness? Why individuals of several species can exhibit a large variation in their behavioural repertories, even within the same population? To what extent behaviours are inherited and what is their genomic “architecture”? Are the same genetic, epigenetic or enviornmental factors responsible for convergent behaviours, appearing in evolutionarily distant taxa? I aim to address these questions by exploring natural populations of marine organisms through the integration of diverse approaches including behaviour, genomics, ecology, physiology, and evolution.
My current focus is on invertebrates, especially cephalopods, known for their sophisticated behavioural and cognitive repertories. I explore inter-individual variation in behavioural responses to uncover how such differences emerge, what are their drivers, and how they evolved in distant lineages such as vertebrates and invertebrates repeatedly.
In addition to my scientific interests, I am devoted to promoting diversity, uniquness, equity and kindness in research and beyond.

Selected Publications

Bosso, L., Smeraldo, S., Russo, D., Chiusano, M. L., Bertorelle, G., Johannesson, K., Butlin, R.K., Danovaro, R., & Raffini, F. (2022). The rise and fall of an alien: why the successful colonizer Littorina saxatilis failed to invade the Mediterranean Sea. Biological Invasions, 24(10), 3169-3187.

Bertorelle, G.*, Raffini, F.*, Bosse, M., Bortoluzzi, C., Iannucci, A., Trucchi, E., Morales, H.E.*, & Van Oosterhout, C. (2022). Genetic load: genomic estimates and applications in non-model animals. Nature Reviews Genetics, 23(8), 492-503. *equal contribution

Raffini, F.*, Schneider, R.F.*, Franchini, P., Kautt, A.F., & Meyer, A. (2020). Diving into divergence: differentiation in swimming performances, physiology and gene expression between locally‐adapted sympatric cichlid fishes. Molecular Ecology, 29(7), 1219-1234. *equal contribution

Raffini, F., Fruciano, C., & Meyer, A. (2018). Gene (s) and individual feeding behavior: exploring eco‐evolutionary dynamics underlying left‐right asymmetry in the scale‐eating cichlid fish Perissodus microlepis. Ecology and Evolution, 8(11), 5495-5507.

Raffini, F., Fruciano, C., Franchini, P., & Meyer, A. (2017). Towards understanding the genetic basis of mouth asymmetry in the scale‐eating cichlid Perissodus microlepis. Molecular Ecology, 26(1), 77-91.