BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARKNESS: THE ROUND-TRIP OF SURFACE AND SUBTERRANEAN ANIMALS
type: CreativeWork
description: Caves are extreme environments, this definition is mostly due to the absence of sunlight that limits the abundance of trophic resources in this environment. The animals that live there, in order to exploit of this ecosystem, must show particular adaptations such as an extremely reduced metabolism, the absence of eyes and the lack of pigmentation. These adaptations are still considered by many authors as an evolutionary dead end. In practice; an animal that has evolved to exploit the cave environment can not perform the reverse process and will never re-colonize the external environment. The main purpose of this thesis was to verify whether this theory was correct.
abstract: Caves are extreme environments, this definition is mostly due to the absence of sunlight that limits the abundance of trophic resources in this environment. The animals that live there, in order to exploit of this ecosystem, must show particular adaptations such as an extremely reduced metabolism, the absence of eyes and the lack of pigmentation. These adaptations are still considered by many authors as an evolutionary dead end. In practice; an animal that has evolved to exploit the cave environment can not perform the reverse process and will never re-colonize the external environment. The main purpose of this thesis was to verify whether this theory was correct.
author: BARZAGHI, BENEDETTA
language: eng
keywords: Settore BIO/05 - Zoologia, Settore BIO/07 - Ecologia
date published: 2023-05-02
date modified: 2026-07-27T20:19:03Z
provider: Università degli Studi di Milano
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Università degli Studi di Milano

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/967565