Dr. Bruno is an aquatic ecologist with a particular interest in animal biodiversity and ecosystem processes.
She has been investigating for more than 30 years groundwater and surface water ecosystems in Italy and abroad, focussing her activity on the ecology, zoology and biogeography of invertebrate communities from different habitats: karstic, hyporheic and benthic in streams, interstitial in lacustrine and marine habitats.
In the last 15 years, she has been concentrating her activity on alpine and mountain streams and rivers, analysing the ecological effects of hydromorphological, physico-chemical and environmental alterations, due to anthropic uses and climate change.
In her activity, she applies an experimental ecohydrological approaches to field and mesocosms studies, and to habitat suitability simulations to study the biotic component of stream ecosystems, integrating also biomolecular approaches to the assessment of biodiversity.

Research Interests:

• Analysis of the main biotic and abiotic drivers of stream ecosystems;
• Development of tools for the multifunctional use of water resources;
• Development of methods and metrics to define Environmental Flows;
• Conservation of endangered aquatic taxa, and control of alien invasive species;
• Ecology of high altitude streams;
• River restoration;
• Groundwater ecology;
• Taxonomy, systematic and biogeography of groundwater Copepoda.

Current research activity:

• Ecological-flows: to develop new indices and methodologies, built on biological data, that are specifically sensitive to hydromorphological alterations, to determine and monitor the ecological flows in Italy;
• Hydropeaking: assessment of the ecological, physical and hydromorphological impacts associated with hydropeaking, and definition of mitigation measures;
• Effects of climate change on high elevation aquatic habitats: assess the ecological shifts of stream ecosystems in deglaciating alpine areas, by disentangling the effects of permafrost and glacial melt on water chemistry, biology and ecological functions of Alpine headwaters;
• Species conservation: Implementation of the Management Plan of the native crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes in Trentino: monitoring of habitats and populations, control of alien species, definition and execution of active protection measures;
• Biodiversity: study of the taxonomy and systematic of groundwater copepods with morphological and biomolecular techniques.