A Checklist of the Non-indigenous Fishes in Turkish Marine Waters

Abstract

A checklist of non-indigenous marine fishes including bony, cartilaginous and jawless distributed along the Turkish Marine Waters was for the first time generated in the present study. The number of records of non-indigenous fish species found in Turkish marine waters were 101 of which 89 bony, 11 cartilaginous and 1 jawless. In terms of occurrence of non-indigenous fish species in the surrounding Turkish marine waters, the Mediterranean coast has the highest diversity (92 species), followed by the Aegean Sea (50 species), the Marmara Sea (11 species) and the Black Sea (2 species). The Indo-Pacific origin of the non-indigenous fish species is represented with 73 species while the Atlantic origin of the non-indigenous species is represented with 22 species. Only first occurrence of a species in the Mediterranean, Aegean, Marmara and Black Sea Coasts of Turkey is given with its literature in the list.

First Record of the Pempheris rhomboidea (Kossmann & Räuber, 1877) from Mersin Bay, Northeastern Mediterranean Sea

“…According to the comparison, P. rhomboidea caught from Mersin Bay was smaller than P. sarayu in terms of the specific morphometric measurements, and the given information in the literature was confirmed by our study ( Table 2). P. rhomboidea was first recorded in the Aegean Sea by Akyol et al (2017) which provided the first record of this species from Turkish coastal waters (Turan et al, 2018). The second record of P. rhomboidea from the Mediterranean coastal waters of Turkey was given with this study.…”

Current status (as of end of 2020) of marine alien species in Turkey

“…Mitigation programmes of biological invasions require reliable national lists purified from errors [ 4 ], even so, inattentive taxonomic approaches are still present. A recent checklist of alien fish inventory of Turkey [ 118 ] includes huge number of erroneous entries, in which even taxa endemic to the Mediterranean Sea were inexplicably treated as alien species. Inclusion of the following native species to the alien inventory is evidently a mistake and should be excluded: Petromyzon marinus , Alopias superciliosus , Mustelus punctulatus , Carcharhinus altimus , C .…”

New Record of Carcharhinus brevipinna (Müller & Henle, 1839) from Mersin Bay, the Northeastern Mediterranean

“…The species belonging to the Carcharhinidae family are circumglobal. C. brevipinna found in the Northeastern Mediterranean cartilaginous fish list reported from the Turkish coast (Turan et al, 2018). However, no specific studies conducted in this region relating to C. brevipinna.…”