New Mediterranean Biodiversity Records (July 2015)

Abstract

The Collective Article ‘New Mediterranean Biodiversity Records’ of the Mediterranean Marine Science journal offers the means to publish biodiversity records in the Mediterranean Sea. The current article is divided in two parts, for records of native and alien species respectively. The new records of native species include: the neon flying squid Ommastrephes bartramii in Capri Island, Thyrrenian Sea; the bigeye thresher shark Alopias superciliosus in the Adriatic Sea; a juvenile basking shark Cetorhinus maximus caught off Piran (northern Adriatic); the deep-sea Messina rockfish Scorpaenodes arenai in the National Marine Park of Zakynthos (East Ionian Sea, Greece); and the oceanic puffer Lagocephalus lagocephalus in the Adriatic Sea.The new records of alien species include: the red algae Antithamnionella elegans and Palisada maris-rubri, found for the first time in Israel and Greece respectively; the green alga Codium parvulum reported from Turkey (Aegean Sea); the first record of the alien sea urchin Diadema setosum in Greece; the nudibranch Goniobranchus annulatus reported from South-Eastern Aegean Sea (Greece); the opisthobranch Melibe viridis found in Lebanon; the new records of the blue spotted cornetfish Fistularia commersonii in the Alicante coast (Eastern Spain); the alien fish Siganus luridus and Siganus rivulatus in Lipsi Island, Dodecanese (Greece); the first record of Stephanolepis diaspros from the Egadi Islands Marine Protected Area (western Sicily); a northward expansion of the alien pufferfish Torquigener flavimaculosus along the southeastern Aegean coasts of Turkey; and data on the occurrence of the Lessepsian immigrants Alepes djedaba, Lagocephalus sceleratus and Fistularia commersonii in Zakynthos Island (SE Ionian Sea, Greece).

New Mediterranean Biodiversity Records (November, 2016)

“…The specimen was carefully removed from its cover and transported to the research premises of HCMR-IMBBC at Thalassokosmos (Gournes, Heraklion, Kriti) where it is being kept in the experimental aquaria of IMBBC. Morphology-based characteristics, depth and substrate type agree with the findings of Katsanevakis et al (2014) and Tsiamis et al (2015). The first record…”

“…It was reported in the Mediterranean Sea from the Kas Peninsula (Yokes & Galil, 2006). In 2009, the species was recorded along the Lebanese coastline (Nader & Indary, 2011), later in 2010 at Antakya, south-eastern coast of Turkey (Turan et al, 2011), in 2014 and 2015 in Kastellorizo, Greece (Latsoudis in Tsiamis et al, 2015), in Kriti (Dounas & Krystalas, 2016, present article), in Rodos Island (Kondylatos & Corsini-Foka in Crocetta et al, 2015) and in Gökova Bay (Yapici et al in Katsanevakis et al, 2014). According to Turan et al (2011), D. setosum may have been transported to Antalya Bay by vessels arriving from the Suez Canal or possibly by sea currents flowing from the northern part of the Gulf of Suez.…”

New Mediterranean Biodiversity Records (October 2015)

“…The diagnostic features and substrate agree with the find- in Katsanevakis et al (2014a), respectively. The spines were black as in Latsoudis in Tsiamis et al (2015) (no gray spines were observed) and the depth corresponds to another publication (e.g. Yokeş & Galil, 2006).…”

“…It occurs throughout the Northwestern Pacific (Japan to Australia and Fiji), the Indo-Pacific, the East African coast and the Red Sea. After its first occurrence in the Mediterranean Sea in 2006 around Kaş Peninsula (Turkey), it has been subsequently reported from Lebanon in 2009, Turkey in 2010 and 2014 and Greece (Kastellorizo Island) in 2014 (Latsoudis in Tsiamis et al, 2015).…”

New Evidence of Marine Fauna Tropicalization off the Southwestern Iberian Peninsula (Southwest Europe)

“…In the Mediterranean Sea, and as far as we are aware, the first record dates to 1878 [53]. So, the increased frequency of reports in the Mediterranean Sea and in the northeastern Atlantic may simply reflect the increased research efforts of current times [48,49,[51][52][53][57][58][59] However, all these facts do not imply that climate change is not inducing, or will not induce, a poleward range expansion of oceanic puffer populations. In the case of the Guadiana estuary, both climate change and the disruption of natural river flow caused by the Alqueva dam might have contributed to the presence of oceanic puffer specimens in the estuary in tandem with the proximity of the Algarve to subtropical regions.…”