Myriapods (Myriapoda). Chapter 7.2

Abstract

Alien myriapods in Europe have never been subject to a comprehensive review. Currently, 40 species belonging to 23 families and 11 orders can be regarded as alien to Europe, which accounts approximately for about 1.8% of all species known on the continent. Millipedes (Class Diplopoda) are represented by 20 alien species, followed by centipedes (Class Chilopoda) with 16, symphylans with 3 and pauropods with only 1. In addition there are numerous cases of continental species introduced to the Atlantic and Mediterranean islands or others of southern origin transported and established in North European cities. Th e earliest record of an alien myriapod dates back to 1836, although the introduction of some species into Europe could have begun already in historical times with an increase in trade between ancient Greeks and Romans with cities in the Near East and North Africa. In post-medieval times this process should have intensifi ed with the trade between Europe and some tropical countries, especially after the discoveries of the Americas and Australia. Th e largest number of alien myriapods (25, excl. intercepted) has been recorded from Great Britain, followed by Germany with 12, France with 11 and Denmark with 10 species. In general, northern and economically more developed countries with high levels of imports and numerous busy sea ports are richer in alien species. Th e various alien myriapods have diff erent origins, but most of them show tropical or subtropical links (28 species, 70%). Eight of them (20%) are widespread in the Tropical and Subtropical belts, eleven (circa 28%) are of Asian origin, seven show links with South and A peer-reviewed open-access journal Pavel Stoev et al. / BioRisk 4(1): 97-130 (2010) 98 the Indian Ocean. Ten myriapods are of unknown origin (cryptogenic). Only 12 species (ca. 30%) of all have established in the wild in Europe. At the present time alien myriapods do not cause serious threats to the European economy and there is insuffi cient data on their impact on native fauna and fl ora.

Barcoding of Central European Cryptops centipedes reveals large interspecific distances with ghost lineages and new species records from Germany and Austria (Chilopoda, Scolopendromorpha)

“…It was provisionally identified as Cryptops doriae , a member of the doriae -group, which is characterized by having teeth on femur, tibia and tarsus of the ultimate legs (Lewis 2011). Cryptops doriae was already reported from a tropical biome in England (Lewis 2007) and is so far the only introduced tropical Cryptops species with records in Europe (Stoev et al 2010). A BLAST search of our specimen against the sequences of Cryptops doriae already deposited on GenBank (11.2015) reveals a large genetic distance between our specimen and the ones from the Pacific, which is the reason we refer to our specimen as Cryptops sp.…”

Atlas of European millipedes 2: Order Julida (Class Diplopoda)

“…Three other species of Spirobolida have been found in a few hothouses, viz. Pseudospirobolellus avernus (Butler, 1876) in the British Eden project (see Stoev et al 2010), as well as Anadenobolus monilicornis (Porat, 1876) and Leptogoniulus sorornus (Butler, 1876) in a few German hothouses (Decker et al 2014), the latter also in (Bigler, 1913) (Blaniulidae) (J. Spelda phot.). B. Trichoblaniulus hirsutus (Brölemann, 1899) (Trichoblaniulidae) (D. Cheung phot.).…”

The subgenus Monotarsobius in the Iberian Peninsula with a description of a new pseudo-cryptic species from Northern Spain revealed by an integrative revision of Lithobius crassipes L. Koch, 1862 (Chilopoda, Lithobiomorpha, Lithobiidae)

“…n., which could also be dispersed by human transport (Decker et al 2017, Stoev et al 2010). In the southern part of Spain more pseudo-cryptic species of the Lithobius crassipes -group may also exist.…”