Morphological and molecular clues for recording the first appearance of Artemia franciscana ( ) in Egypt

Abstract

Artemia franciscana is a native species to the New World, and became an exotic species to most parts of the world. The Egyptian hypersaline, continental Qaroun Lake (Fayoum Governorate, Middle of Egypt) is subjected to a gradually increasing salinity rates that approximate or exceed these of seawater. Artemia populations there are known to be parthenogenetic. Yet, these populations started to exhibit abnormal morphologies. Therefore, Qaroun Lake samples of Artemia were subjected to several morphological, biometric, and molecular phylogenetic analyses for accurate species identification and phylogeographic origin approximation. These analyses revealed the existence of the alien sexual species of brine shrimp A. franciscana in Qaroun Lake. The characteristics of the subspherical frontal knob with several spines on the top, ovisac lateral triangular lobe on both sides and its projection together with the biometrics confirmed this species morphotype. DNA barcoding and other molecular analyses based on PCR-based amplification and sequencing of the barcode region of the cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene (COI) exhibited that all the collected samples belong to five haplotypes. Egyptian A. franciscana COI sequences phylogeny and pairwise distances analysis exhibited closer proximity to Latin American strains than to the Northern American ones. A. franciscana presence may be ascribed to the migratory birds present in Qaroun Lake protectorate, since no marine aquaculture activity in Qaroun Lake is known. Therefore, and for the best of our knowledge, this is the first record of the invasive A. franciscana in Egypt.

Taxonomic integrative and phylogenetic identification of the first recorded Triatoma rubrofasciata in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province and Maoming, Guangdong Province, China

“…Clear identification of invasive species is crucial for ecosystem maintenance, control, and risk assessment [19]. In this paper, the triatomine were identified as T. rubrofasciata by morphological analysis, which is supported by both the genetic and phylogenetic species concepts, indicating that 16S rRNA, 28S rRNA and COI can be used as specific gene markers for the reliable identification of triatomine species, as suggested by previous studies [6, 10, 44].…”

“…However, morphological identification is complicated, time-consuming and sometimes inaccurate, especially for specimens in nymphal stages, due to the wide variety of triatomines (over 140 species). Recently, with the rapid development of molecular biology techniques and bioinformatics, molecular identification based on specific DNA sequence analyses has become a common technological tool used to identify new species [19, 20], to provide rapid diagnoses of invasive pathogens [21] and cases of rare diseases [22], and to help in understanding the phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationships among species [23]. DNA markers including mitochondrial 16S and nuclear 28S ribosomal RNA (rRNA), mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI), as well as DNA markers of nuclear origin, such as the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS-2) have been used to analyse genetic variation among triatomines, and explain their population structure and evolutionary history [6, 10, 23–28].…”

Molecular and morphological confirmation of an invasive American isopod; Livoneca redmanii Leach, 1818, from the Mediterranean region to Lake Qaroun, Egypt

“…Additional non-target species, such as African pupfishes Alphanius spp., eel Anguilla sp., Big-scale Sand Smelt Atherina boyeri and Double-ended Pipefish Trachyrhamphus bicoarctatus were accidentally introduced via stocks of mullet and other fish fry (Ishak, 1980;Khalaf Allah, 2014) These stockings are the assumed introduction vector for the American ctenophore species Mnemiopsis leidyi (El-Shabrawy and Dumont, 2016) and mosquitofish Gambusia affinis/holbrooki (Khalaf Allah, 2014), which were previously reported from the Mediterranean. Conversely, the cosmopolitan brine shrimp Artemia franciscana was likely introduced into Lake Qaroun via the transportation of cysts on the bodies of migratory birds (Sheir et al, 2018).…”

Mitogenomic phylogeny and divergence time estimation of Artemia leach, 1819 (Branchiopoda: Anostraca) with emphasis on parthenogenetic lineages

“…Artemia consists of nine sexual species and four obligate parthenogenetic lineages (Asem et al, 2023), regionally distributed around the world (except Antarctica) in arid and semiarid areas. The American A. franciscana Kellogg, 1906 has been introduced for commercial aquaculture in Eurasia (Zheng et al, 2004;Amat et al, 2005;Scalone & Rabet, 2013;Eimanifar et al, 2014Eimanifar et al, , 2020Horváth et al, 2018;Asem et al, 2021a;Saji et al, 2019;Shen et al, 2021;Subramani et al, 2021;Wu et al, 2022), Africa (Hontoria et al, 2012;Ogello et al, 2014;Sheir et al, 2018) and Australia (Timms, 2012;2014;Rogers & Timms, 2014). Obligate parthenogenetic Artemia consists of four lineages with different ploidy levels (di-, tri-, tetra-and pentaploid), all occurring in the Old World (Amat, 1980b, Hontoria & Amat, 1992aAmat et al, 1995;Triantaphyllidis et al, 1997a;Sun et al, 1999;Maniatsi et al, 2011, Hontoria et al, 2012Maccari et al, 2013ab;Eimanifar et al, 2014Eimanifar et al, , 2020Asem & Sun, 2014a, b, 2016 and Australia (Timms, 2012;2014;Rogers & Timms, 2014).…”