Issue 4 Summary by the Editors

The fourth issue of Aquatic Invasions includes 9 regular research articles and 8 short communications. The issue begins with a paper on the first European record of the invasive brackish water clam Rangia cuneata, first found in the harbour of Antwerp, Belgium in August 2005 (Verween et al. 2006, pp 198-203). A joint British-Iranian study reports the invasion of the oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense in the Anzali Lagoon (Iran), along the shores of the southern Caspian Sea (De Grave and Ghane 2006, pp 204-208). Two papers by British authors are devoted to (a) the distribution of marine non-native species in Scottish marinas (Ashton et al. 2006, pp 209-213) and (b) to the risk assessment of species transports in the hull fouling of recreational yachts (Ashton et al. 2006, pp 214-218). The manuscript by Ferrari and Rossetti (Ferrari and Rossetti 2006, pp 219 - 222) reports new records of the Australasian calanoid copepod Boeckella triarticulata (Copepoda: Calanoida) in northern Italy. The survey of benthic communities along the eastern Levantine coast of Turkey in September 2005 revealed 9 alien serpulid polychaete species (Çinar 2006, pp 223-240) and the occurrence of the new alien gastropod species Chrysallida micronana is reported for the Mediterranean Sea (Özturk and van Aartsen 2006, pp 241-244).

The national checklist for aquatic alien species in Germany includes more than 140 species from the coastlines of the North and Baltic Seas and from inland waters within the national borders of Germany (Gollasch and Nehring 2006, pp 245-269). This research paper was developed in the framework of the European Commission 6th Framework Programme Strategic Targeted Research Project "Delivering Alien Invasive Species Inventories for Europe" (DAISIE) (www.daisie.se).

Other research articles in this issue of Aquatic Invasions report on the establishment of the American ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi in coastal waters of The Netherlands. The species which may have been present here for several years, having been misidentified as the morphologically similar Bolinopsis infundibulum (Faasse and Bayha 2006, pp 270-277). The massive development of this highly invasive ctenophore has also been recorded in late summer and autumn 2006 in other coastal areas of the North Sea (Hansson 2006, pp 295-298) and the Baltic Sea (Javidpour et al. 2006, pp 299-302). This introduced species may cause drastic changes of the pelagic food webs of north European coastal waters. Rapid concerted actions are needed from the European scientific community, policymakers and managers to combat this invasion.

Four short communications address the records of alien species in the Mediterranean: (a) the majid crab Hyastenus hilgendorfi (Galil 2006, pp 284-285), (b) the banana prawn Fenneropenaeus merguiensis (Özcan et al. 2006, pp 286-288), (c) the silverstripe blaasop Lagocephalus sceleratus (Bilecenoglu et al. 2006, pp 289-291) and (d) two mollusks Siphonaria belcheri and Septifer bilocularis (Albayrak and Calgar 2006, pp 292-294). Two other short communications are devoted to invasions of alien species in European inland waters: the record of the pumpkinseed Lepomis gibbosus in Norway (Sterud and Jørgensen 2006, pp 278-280) and new records of the zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha from central Italy (Lori and Cianfanelli 2006, pp 281-283).

 

First submissions for the first issue of the second volume of Aquatic Invasions were already received and it is expected that this issue will be released in February 2007.

 

 

New records of invasive species

Interactive Map.

 

 

Invasive species of 2005

 

 

Last update: 19 December 2007