Abstract
Non-native ascidians can be a major feature of sessile communities, particularly in artificial habitats, but may be overlooked because of poor understanding of species’ taxonomy and biogeographic status. The styelid unitary ascidian Asterocarpa humilis, up to now only reported in the Southern Hemisphere, has been found on the coast of NW France from St Malo to Quiberon, on the south coast of England from Falmouth to Brighton, and also in north Wales. The first documented occurrence was in 2005 in Brittany, but the species was found to be relatively widespread at a regional scale and common in many places during surveys in 2009, 2010 and 2011. It has possibly been present but overlooked for some time. The identification based on morphology was confirmed by comparison with specimens from New Zealand, within the species’ presumed native range, by molecular barcoding based on mitochondrial (COI) and nuclear (18S) genes.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Mike Page (NIWA, Port Nelson) and Joanne Povey (University of Otago) for respectively collecting and forwarding specimens of Asterocarpa humilis from New Zealand. We are thankful to the divers of the Marine Operation Department of the Station Biologique of Roscoff for their help in looking for and collecting specimens. We thank Gretchen Lambert for very helpful correspondence. The collaboration between the Station Biologique de Roscoff and the Marine Biological Association was supported by the Interreg IVa Marinexus programme and the AXA Research Fund Marine Aliens and Climate Change project.
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Bishop, J.D.D., Roby, C., Yunnie, A.L.E. et al. The Southern Hemisphere ascidian Asterocarpa humilis is unrecognised but widely established in NW France and Great Britain. Biol Invasions 15, 253–260 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-012-0286-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-012-0286-x