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Discovering the Pandora’s box: the invasion of alien flatworms in Italy

  • Alien Floras and Faunas 14
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Abstract

Alien land planarians have been scarcely recorded in Italy and the aim of this work was to update the distribution of alien planarians in Italy using a citizen science and, whenever possible, a molecular approach. We received 133 records of at least 15 species (Anisorhynchodemus cf. signata, Australopacifica atrata, Australoplana cf. sanguinea alba, Bipalium kewense, B. vagum, Caenoplana cf. dendyi, C. cf. decolorata, C. coerulea, C. variegata, Diversibipalium multilineatum, Diversibipalium “black”, Endeavouria septemlineata, and Obama nungara) and some undescribed or unidentifiable-to-species taxa. Records came from all Italian regions except for those characterized by the lowest human population densities (Valle d’Aosta, Molise, and Basilicata) and 83% of records come from private gardens. Most records have been observed in spring and early autumn and seem to increase with increasing rainfall. Citizen-science data significantly expanded the distribution area of these species in Italy, and thus the citizen-science platforms represent an effective tool for the early detection of these alien pest species.

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Data availability

Data used in this study is available in Table S1 of the Electronic Supplementary Material.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank all citizens who sent us collected samples and records: Simone Angelini, Elisa Antognini, Roberto & Marisa Pierini Armaroli, Giuliana Artioli, Antonio Attanasio, Caterina Azara, Sara Bagarozza, Gaia Bandini, Andrea Battaglini, Alessandro Barra, Maria Cristina Berto, Stefano Bioni, Cesare Bonifazi Martinozzi, Bernardo Borri, Neike Boventi, Emanuele Brenna, Corrado Britolli, Giacomo Bruni, Simona Bruno, Emanuela Busia, Francesco Calderaro, Alessandro Campanaro, Enzo Cannatà, Dino Carraro, Giuliano Carrozza, Tiziana Carta, Giulia Casamento, Sara Cipriani, Giovanni Cococo, Sara Comis, Mattia Corsato, Enrico Crino, Tiziano D’Elia, Enrico De Lillo, Giuseppe De Martin, Laura Demil, Vincenzo Di Dio, Lucrezia Di Domenico, Piergiorgio Di Pompeo, Angelo Ditta, Alessandro Durastante, Lydia Espinoza, Roberto Fabbri, Daniela Fale, Davide Ferro, Simona Fiore, Christian Florenti, Rosario Galesi, Kiki Ghiro, Simone Grassi, Tommaso La Mantia, Vittorio Lamera, Marco Luporini, Lia Maestri Piamonte, Riccardo Maltagliati, Raoul Manenti, Irene Marion, Isabel Marzahn, Federico Massa, Agnes Maurice, Lara Mazzocco, Consuelo Messeri, Valeria Michelucci, Marcel Mircea, Pietro Missiaggia, Giuliana Modesti, Laetitia Montagna, Manuel Morelli, Onofrio Murolo, Cristina Nardi, Simone Nicolini, Stefano Nicolosi, Matteo Pagliari, Ilaria Patrignano, Marco Pecoraro, Marco Pellegrini, Cristina Pennisi, Giulia Picciotto, Andrea Pierantonio, Gabriella Pili, David Piperno, Gianfranco Pisa, Leonardo Platania, Jacopo Polvere, Lorenzo Racchetti, Gianfranco Repetto, Gianluca Riezzo, Federica Rescigno, Massimiliano Resta, Eliseo Roma, Luigi Romani, Iacopo Romano, Gianni Romeo, Aurelio Sanguinetti, Anna Santagiuliana, Alessio Serra, Sonia Serra, Elisabetta Sbrega, Santi Scibilla, Vasco Sfondrini, Karol Tabarelli De Fatis, Vincenzo Talarico, Laura Tezzon, Giuseppe Urso, Viviana Vangelista, Roberto Viviano, Marco Zanelli, Sergio Zappa, and Pierpaolo Zatta. Support for this research to MM (grant LCF/BQ/DR20/11790020) was provided by ‘La Caixa’ Foundation (ID 100010434). Two anonymous reviewers and the Associate Editor Petr Pyšek kindly took the time to improve the first version of our MS with their comments.

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Mori, E., Magoga, G., Panella, M. et al. Discovering the Pandora’s box: the invasion of alien flatworms in Italy. Biol Invasions 24, 205–216 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-021-02638-w

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