First Record of the Alien Species Procambarus virginalis Lyko, 2017 in Fresh Waters of Sardinia and Insight into Its Genetic Variability

Abstract

In the fresh waters of Sardinia (Italy), the non-indigenous crayfish species Procambarus clarkii has been reported from 2005, but, starting from 2019, there have been several reports of a new non-indigenous crayfish in southern and central areas of this Mediterranean island, and its morphology suggests that this species may be the marbled crayfish Procambarus virginalis. Forty-seven individuals of this putative species were analyzed, using the mitochondrial gene Cytochrome c Oxidase subunit I as molecular marker to identify this crayfish and investigate the level of genetic variability within the recently established population. Phylogenetic and phylogeographic analyses were carried out on a dataset including sequences from the Sardinian individuals and from all congenerics available in GenBank. Results showed that the new Sardinian crayfish belong to the species P. virginalis. All the sequences belonging to P. virginalis from European countries are identical, with only few exceptions found among Sardinian individuals. In conclusion, this paper highlights the occurrence of a new further alien species in the Sardinian fresh waters, which are already characterized by the high presence of non-indigenous species.

Predator-Prey Interactions between Nonnative Juvenile Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides) and Local Candidate Prey Species in the Pearl River Delta: Predation Capacity, Preference and Growth Performance

“…The present research shows that the numbers of each local species killed in the first hour and those in 24 h (RPCN) differed significantly between shrimp and fish. This suggests that prey species may change their strategy of antipredator behavior with the differentiation of taxonomic categories [28]. From another perspective, variations in feeding rhythm (FR) imply that the local food resources of fish might encounter more predation risk.…”

Sustained ecological impacts of invasive crayfish following claw injury

“…In recent decades, cray sh also became popular as ornamental aquatic pets (Chucholl, 2013;Patoka et al, 2014;Weiperth et al, 2019), consequently leading to the establishment of several additional cray sh species in Europe (see Bláha et al, 2022 and references therein). Out of these, the parthenogenetic marbled cray sh Procambarus virginalis is a well-recognised invader (Lipták et al, 2017;European Commission, 2016), increasingly present across continental Europe (Grandjean et al, 2021;Sanna et al, 2021;Scheers et al, 2021) as well as overseas.…”

Mitochondrial DNA of Sardinian and North-West Italian Populations Revealed a New Piece in the Mosaic of Phylogeography and Phylogeny of Salariopsis fluviatilis (Blenniidae)

“…Populations of S. fluviatilis living on Sardinia Island deserve particular attention, as this species is one of the few putative native freshwater fish known for the island [ 30 ]. The following two problems are particularly serious for freshwater Sardinian fauna: the introduction of a high number of alien species, most of them perpetrated in the past three decades [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ] and the freshwater habitat alteration, consisting mainly of the construction of numerous dams starting from the beginning of the last century. In such a context, the present study was aimed at filling a gap in genetic information on populations of S. fluviatilis from Italian areas that are not yet under investigation.…”