Marco Esposito

My principal interest is to study lower-impact or non-detrimental weed communities that can coexist with the crops without significantly reducing their yield and quality. My research focuses on understanding the ecological and biological interactions between weed communities and crops as well as the other biotic/abiotic components of the agroecosystem. My research is also focused on understanding how to manipulate the weed species composition that results in less or non-detrimental weed communities using new technologies such as artificial intelligence, weeder robots, and RNAi. More generally, I am interested in identifying new agroecological practices to reduce the application of pesticides and intensive soil tillage to increase biodiversity, soil health, and water availability to crops.

During my Ph.D. I was involved in a project aimed at identifying non-detrimental weed communities in wheat with the purpose of studying their morpho-physiological traits and their ecological interactions with the wheat crop. This multi-year project involved collaboration with engineers with expertise in artificial intelligence algorithms, thus allowing weed species identification using weeder robots and drones.

Education

• 2023 Ph.D., Sustainable Agricultural and Forestry Systems & Food Security, University of Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy

• 2019 M.S., Agricultural Science & Technology, University of Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy

• 2017 B.S., Agricultural, Forestry, Environmental Sciences, University of Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy

Publications

• Esposito, M., Westbrook, A., Maggio, A., Cirillo, V., & DiTommaso, A. (2023). Neutral weed communities: The intersection between crop productivity, biodiversity, and weed ecosystem services. Weed Science, 1-30. doi:10.1017/wsc.2023.27
• Esposito, M., Cirillo, V., De Vita, P., Cozzolino, E., & Maggio, A. (2023). Soil nutrition management may preserve non-detrimental weed communities in rainfed winter wheat (T. aestivum). Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 355, 108596.
• Esposito, M., Crimaldi, M., Cirillo, V., Sarghini, F., and Maggio, A. (2021). Drone and sensor technology for sustainable weed management: a review. Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture, 8(1), 1-11.
• De Pascale, S., Rouphael, Y., Cirillo, V., Esposito, M., Maggio, A. (2021, September). Modular systems to foster circular economy in agriculture. In VIII South-Eastern Europe Symposium on Vegetables and Potatoes 1320 (pp. 205-210).
• Cirillo, V., D’Amelia, V., Esposito, M., Amitrano, C., Carillo, P., Carputo, D., Maggio, A. (2021). Anthocyanins Are Key Regulators of Drought Stress Tolerance in Tobacco. Biology, 10(2), 139.
• Di Stasio, E., Cirillo, V., Raimondi, G., Giordano, M., Esposito, M., Maggio, A. (2020). Osmo- priming with seaweed extracts enhances the yield of salt-stressed tomato plants. Agronomy, 10(10), 1559.

More information

• ResearchGate profile
• LinkedIn Profile