Lagocephalus sceleratus (Gmelin, 1789) expands through the African coasts towards the Western Mediterranean Sea: A call for awareness

Abstract

The presence of the North American Marmorkrebs (Procambarus fallax f. virginalis) in European inland waters is entirely driven by ongoing propagule pressure from the ornamental trade. Since 2003 at least 25 independent introduction events have been confirmed, of which some have eventually resulted in established populations. This study links a maximum-entropy model that forecasts the probability of Marmorkrebs introduction based on socio-economic predictors to an updated species distribution model based on environmental predictors in order to explore the risk of further Marmorkrebs establishment in Europe. In line with related research, the probability of Marmorkrebs release was largely affected by gross domestic product and human population density, i.e. predictors very likely related to the density of Marmorkrebs owners, whereas environmental suitability was mostly influenced by minimum temperature and the availability of lentic habitats, which was indirectly assessed by terrain slope. While considerable parts of Europe were predicted as potentially suitable for establishment, high probabilities of introduction were forecasted in much smaller geographic areas. The consensus map of the model predictions suggests that introduction and subsequent establishment of Marmorkrebs is likely to occur in much of Germany, the Benelux countries, England, Italy, and areas of high human population density throughout France and Spain, as well as parts of southernmost Scandinavia and Southeastern Europe. Monitoring trades of Marmorkrebs in these high-risk regions is recommended and implications for proactive measures are discussed, including the need for consistent trade regulations at the EU level.

Range expansion of an invasive pufferfish, Lagocephalus sceleratus (Actinopterygii: Tetraodontiformes: Tetraodontidae), to the south-western Mediterranean

“…Our observations provided additional evidence-after Jribi and Bradai (2012), Milazzo et al (2012), and Ben Souissi et al (2014)-of the occurrence of L. sceleratus along the North African coast and its spread in the Western Mediterranean. The relatively large size of individuals captured and their presence in the Far East of Algerian coast suggests their arrival from their last place of record on the north-western coast of Tunisia, near Tabarka (Ben Souissi et al 2014). Among specimens collected in Tunisia, some females were mature with ripe gonads (gonad weight up to 245 g), suggesting that a breeding population may be established.…”

“…TXT is a nonprotein organic compound (aminoperhydroquinazoline) and one of the strongest marine paralytic toxins known today (El-Ganainy et al 2006). Up to now, three cases of poisoning of persons who had consumed this fish were reported from Israel, Lebanon (Golani et al 2006), and Tunisia (Ben Souissi et al 2014). In Egypt, although landing of these fishes is forbidden as a commercial species, they are illegally landed and consumed as food in the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez areas.…”

Morphological and genetic barcoding study confirming the first Stegastes variabilis (Castelnau, 1855) report in the Mediterranean Sea

“…Most of the alien fishes recorded in the Mediterranean are considered to be Lessepsian migrants (Golani, 2010) which entered through the Suez Canal, followed by adaptation in the Levantine Sea before spreading westerly throughout the Mediterranean Sea (Psomadakis et al, 2009;Jribi & Bradai, 2012;Souissi et al, 2014;Evans et al 2015). As S. variabilis has never been recorded in any other region of the Mediterranean Sea its occurrence in the Southern Central Mediterranean indicates that this specimen may have not been spotted before due to its close resemblance to the Mediterranean damselfish, C. chromis.…”

A lionfish (Pterois miles) invasion has begun in the Mediterranean Sea

“…The bluespotted cornetfish Fistularia commersonii colonised almost the entire Mediterranean in just 7 years (Azzurro et al 2012) where it now poses a threat to local ecosystems since it feeds on a large variety of prey (41 taxa) and specialises on juveniles of the commercial fish Boops boops and Spicara smaris (Bariche et al 2009). The pufferfish Lagocephalus sceleratus has now reached the central Mediterranean and is expanding west (Souissi et al 2014). It eats economically important cephalopods Sepia officinalis and Octopus vulgaris (Cuvier 1797) and is classed as a fisheries pest (Kalogirou 2013).…”