The janirid isopod Ianiropsis serricaudis, native to the North-West Pacific region, has recently been identified as a non-indigenous species in several localities in the Northern Hemisphere. 
Hereby, we present evidence of its occurrence in the Mediterranean Sea, namely in the Lagoon of Venice (Italy). This finding confirms the hypothesis that this species is more widespread in Europe 
than expected, but has long been underreported on account of the small size of isopods (most of them being in the size range of 3 to 20 mm) and the taxonomic complexity of the genus.Janiridni jednakonošci Ianiropsis serricaudis, koji izvorno potječu iz sjeverozapadne pacifičke regije, nedavno su identificirani kao alohtona vrsta na nekoliko lokaliteta u sjevernoj hemisferi. 
Ovime iznosimo dokaze o njihovom pojavljivanju u Sredozemnom moru, i to u venecijanskoj laguni (Italija). Ovi nalazi potvrđuju tezu da je ova vrsta rasprostranjenija u Europi nego što se mislilo, ali 
se o njoj dugo vremena malo izvješćivalo zbog veličine jednakonožaca (većina je veličinom varirala između 3 i 20 mm) te zbog taksonomske složenosti roda

Agnese MARCHINI

Anna OCCHIPINTI-AMBROGI

Jasmine FERRARIO

English

MARCHINI, Agnese

FERRARIO, Jasmine

OCCHIPINTI-AMBROGI, Anna

Hrčak - Portal of scientific journals of Croatia

ISSN: 0001-5113AADRAYACTA ADRIAT.,57(2): 331 - 336, 2016 SHORT COMMUNICATIONConfirming predictions: the invasive isopod Ianiropsis serricaudis Gurjanova, 1936 (Crustacea: Peracarida) is abundant in the Lagoon of Venice (Italy)Agnese MARCHINI1, Jasmine FERRARIO1* and Anna OCCHIPINTI-AMBROGI11Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pavia, Via S. Epifanio 14, 27100 Pavia, Italy*Corresponding author, e-mail: jasmine.ferrario@unipv.itINTRODUCTIONIaniropsis (G.O. Sars, 1897-99) is a com-plex and poorly understood genus composed of species similar to one another (BRUSCA & IVERSON, 1985), as well as similar to Janira (Leach, 1814). Species within this genus are mainly indigenous in the Pacific Ocean, apart from Ianiropsis breviremis (G.O. Sars, 1883), which occurs in the North-East Atlantic, and Ianiropsis palpalis (Barnard, 1914) on the South African coast. Recently, the species Ianiropsis serricaudis (Gurjanova, 1936) was identified in North America, on both the Pacific and Atlan-tic coasts, and in Europe, so far only reported from England and the Netherlands (HOBBS et al. 2015 and references therein). The authors predicted that the species is probably more widespread than previously reported along North American and European coasts. This work confirms their hypothesis, providing evidence of the presence of I. serricaudis in an Adriatic lagoon.MATERIAL AND METHODSThe Lagoon of Venice (northern Adriatic Sea) covers an area of approximately 550 km2 and is divided into three hydrographic basins: northern basin, central basin (including the town of Venice) and Chioggia basin. The average annual temperature in the lagoon is 17.18 ± 0.46 °C and salinity is 29.82 PSU ±2.3 (BANDELJ et al., 2012).In July 2012 an extensive sampling sur-vey of hard bottom benthic communities of this lagoon was performed. The target were some stations assumed to be preferential sites The janirid isopod Ianiropsis serricaudis, native to the North-West Pacific region, has recently been identified as a non-indigenous species in several localities in the Northern Hemisphere. Hereby, we present evidence of its occurrence in the Mediterranean Sea, namely in the Lagoon of Venice (Italy). This finding confirms the hypothesis that this species is more widespread in Europe than expected, but has long been underreported on account of the small size of isopods (most of them being in the size range of 3 to 20 mm) and the taxonomic complexity of the genus.Key words: marine crustaceans, introduced species, fouling, lagoons332  ACTA ADRIATICA, 57(2): 331 - 336, 2016for non-indigenous species (NIS) introduction due to the human activities they host (Fig. 1): shellfish farms of the Manilla clam Ruditapes philippinarum (Adams & Reeve, 1850), com-mercial and touristic harbors, marinas, and sites of seafood trade and processing. Sites distant from the above-mentioned locations and not directly influenced by anthropogenic activities responsible for NIS introduction were also sur-veyed in each sub-basin (“no-vector” stations in Fig. 1). Samples were collected from one of the artificial hard substrates that is known to be suitable for the settlement of non-indigenous biota: the partially submerged wooden poles that are widely disseminated along the lagoon chan-nels to indicate the navigable paths (MARCHINI et al., 2007). The community occurring on these substrates has been described by SCONFIETTI et al. (2003) and CORRIERO et al. (2007). Overall, 15 stations were sampled by scraping the wooden poles with a hand-held rigid net operated from a boat. Three replicates were collected from each station under the lowest tide level, resulting in a total sampling area of approximately 0.68 m2 per each station. Samples were then preserved in formaldehyde and identified in the laboratory. The abundance of macroinvertebrate taxa was estimated following a semi-quantitative scale, which considers four levels: 1= presence of iso-lated individuals / colonies, 2= a few individuals / a few small colonies, 3= numerous individuals / large well-established colonies, 4= overwhelm-ing abundance (SCONFIETTI et al., 2003).Ianiropsis serricaudis was identified follow-ing DOTI & WILSON (2010) and HOBBS et al. (2015). Specimens of I. serricaudis were deposited in the Museum of Natural History of Venice with the code MSNVE 23357.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThe specimens collected in the Lagoon of Venice display the diagnostic characters of I. serricaudis indicated by DOTI & WILSON (2010) and HOBBS et al. (2015). The specimens have elon-gate segments 6 and 7 of antennal peduncle (Fig. 2a,b), two claws on dactyli of peraeopod 1 (Fig. 3a) and three claws on peraeopod 7 (Fig. 3b). They also have three or four denticles on lateral margin of pleotelson, along the posterior half of the margin (Fig. 3c), maxilliped palps elongated and visible in dorsal view (Fig. 2b, 3d, e).Ianiropsis serricaudis was a dominant spe-cies among the crustacean assemblages of the Lagoon of Venice in 2012. It was present in all stations and all replicates within stations, including “no-vector” stations, often being the most abundant species and reaching hundreds of individuals in several samples, up to about one thousand specimens in Marghera harbor (central lagoon). Other peracarids reaching comparably high abundance in Venice assemblages were Apocorophium spp., Ericthonius spp., Jassa spp. and the non-indigenous Caprella scaura (Tem-pleton, 1836) and Paranthura japonica (Rich-ardson, 1909). Other prevalent NIS co-occurring with I. serricaudis in our samples were: Botryl-loides violaceus (Oka, 1927), Didemnum vexil-lum (Kott, 2002), Hydroides dianthus (Verrill, 1873), Styela plicata (Lesueur, 1823) and Tricel-laria inopinata (d’Hondt & Occhipinti Ambrogi, Fig. 1. Study area: the Lagoon of Venice, North-Adriatic Sea. Sampling stations: marina (M), clam farm (CF), fish market (FM), seafood processing (SP), harbor (H: HM- commercial terminal of Marghera, HC- cruise line terminal), no-vector (NV). Colored squares indicate levels of abundance of Ianiropsis serricaudis: blue: 3; red: 4 (see text for definition of abundance levels)333Marchini et al.: Confirming predictions: the invasive isopod Ianiropsis serricaudis Gurjanova, 1936  ...1985); an associated community comparable with those described in the North American and European introduction range of I. serricaudis (HOBBS et al., 2015).The continuing erosion of taxonomic exper-tise has been recently identified as one of the top issues that relate to invasive alien species management in Europe (OJAVEER et al., 2014). Diminutive taxa that receive poor attention in routine surveys are likely to be disregarded or misidentified, thus contributing to the underesti-mation of the phenomenon of marine invasions. This is the case of the isopod I. serricaudis, having been repeatedly introduced throughout the Northern Hemisphere without even being noticed (HOBBS et al., 2015), and sometimes being misidentified with juveniles of Janira maculosa. It is likely that the same mistake has occurred in previous studies of the Lagoon of Venice so that old records of J. maculosa in the Lagoon of Ven-ice (SCONFIETTI, 1988) could actually refer to I. serricaudis. Unfortunately, crustacean samples referred in SCONFIETTI (1988) were not available for re-examination and therefore the hypothesis of misidentification remains speculative. For the same reason, the date of the first introduction of I. serricaudis in the Lagoon of Venice cannot be assessed with certainty, similarly to the case of another North-West Pacific isopod, P. japonica (MARCHINI et al., 2014).The introduction of I. serricaudis in the Lagoon of Venice could have occurred via aqua-culture, directly from the native area or from another introduced area in Europe, from where Venice shellfish farmers might have imported commercial bivalves. Alternatively, it could have arrived with ballast water or on the hull of ships, in association with fouling organisms such as ascidians and bryozoans. All these vec-tors can be classified at the “possible” level of certainty, according to the definitions of MINCHIN (2007). In fact, there is no direct evi-dence for any of them, and the fact that other isopods have been associated with such vectors (HEWIIT & CAMPBELL, 2001; GOLLASCH et al., 2002; LAVESQUE et al., 2013; MARCHINI et al., 2014) does not allow excluding any of them.The Lagoon of Venice is a hotspot of intro-duction of marine NIS in the Mediterranean Sea (OCCHIPINTI-AMBROGI et al., 2011). Many species introduced there in the 1980s-1990s by aqua-culture or shipping are now well-established there and very widespread in the Mediterranean Sea and along European Atlantic coasts, e.g. the erect bryozoan T. inopinata and the caprel-lid amphipod C. scaura (COOK et al., 2013; ROS Fig. 2. a, b). Two specimens of Ianiropsis serricaudis from the Lagoon of Venice (scale bar: 1 mm).Fig.3. Details of Ianiropsis serricaudis from the Lagoon of Venice; (a) close-up of the two claws of pereopod 1; (b) close-up of the three claws of pereopod 7; (c) four denticles on the lateral margin of the pleotelson; (d) dorsal views of Ianiropsis serricaudis with visible maxilliped palps; (e) close-up of one maxilliped palp (white scale bar 200 μm, black scale bar 500 μm)334  ACTA ADRIATICA, 57(2): 331 - 336, 2016et al., 2014). Ianiropsis serricaudis might have had a similar fate and may have already been introduced in other Mediterranean localities that are known to share many NIS in common with Venice, as a result of aquaculture transfers, e.g. Mar Piccolo of Taranto (Apulia, Southern Italy) or Lake Fusaro (Sicily, Italy), and so may be expected to be already present or may subse-quently do so.CONCLUSIONThe present work confirms the prediction by HOBBS et al. (2015) that I. serricaudis is “going global” and adds the Adriatic Sea to its already wide introduction range. Notwithstand-ing its diminutive size, the very high abundances reached by its population in the Lagoon of Ven-ice, as well as in other introduction sites (HOBBS et al., 2015) suggest possible impacts via competi-tion, grazing and predation. Further studies are needed to investigate potential competition with native crustaceans or facilitation mediated by other introduced species.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Communi-ty Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2011-2014) under Grant Agreement No. 266445 for the project Vectors of Change in Oceans and Seas Marine Life, Impact on Economic Sectors (VECTORS). Jasmine FERRARIO was supported by a PhD grant from the University of Pavia. The manuscript greatly benefited from the com-ments of three anonymous reviewers.REFERENCESBANDELJ, V., C. SOLIDORO, D. CURIEL, G. COSSA-RINI, D.M. CANU & A. RISMONDO. 2012. Fuzzi-ness and heterogeneity of benthic metacom-munities in a complex transitional system. PloS one, 7(12): e52395.BRUSCA, R.C. & E.W. IVERSON. 1985. Guide to the Marine Isopod Crustacea of Pacific Costa Rica. Universidad de Costa Rica. Rev. Biol. Trop., 33 (1): 1-77.COOK, E.J., J. STEHLÍKOVÁ, C.M. BEVERIDGE, M.T. BURROWS, H. DE BLAUWE & M. FAASSE. 2013. Distribution of the invasive bryozoan Tri-cellaria inopinata in Scotland and a review of its European distribution. Aq. Inv., 8(3): 281-288.CORRIERO, G., C. LONGO, M. MERCURIO, A. MAR-CHINI & A. OCCHIPINTI-AMBROGI. 2007. Porif-era and Bryozoa on artificial hard bottoms in the Venice Lagoon: Spatial distribution and temporal changes in the northern basin. Ital. J. Zool., 74(1): 21-29.DOTI, B.L. & G.D. WILSON. 2010. The genera Carpias Richardson, Ianiropsis Sars and Janaira Moreira & Pires (Isopoda: Asellota: Janiridae) from Australia, with description of three new species. Zootaxa, 2625: 1-39.GOLLASCH, S., E. MACDONALD, S. BELSON, H. BOTNEN, J.T. CHRISTENSEN, J.P. HAMER, G. HOUVENAGHEL, A. JELMERT, I. LUCAS, D. MASSON, T. MCCOLLIN, S. OLENIN, A. PERS-SON, I. WALLENTINUS, L.P.M.J. WETSTEYN, T. WITTLING. 2002. Life in ballast tanks. In: E. Leppäkoski, S. Gollasch, S. Olenin (Edi-tors.) Invasive aquatic species of Europe. Distribution, impacts and management, Springer Netherlands, pp. 217-231.HEWITT, C.L. & M.L. CAMPBELL. 2001. The Aus-tralian distribution of the introduced sphaer-omatid isopod, Paracerceis sculpta. Crusta-ceana, 74(9): 925-936.HOBBS, N-V., E. LAZO-WASEM, M. FAASSE, J.R. CORDELL, J.W. CHAPMAN, C.S. SMITH, R. PRE-ZANT, R. SHELL & J.T. CARLTON. 2015. Going global: The introduction of the Asian iso-pod Ianiropsis serricaudis Gurjanova (Crus-tacea: Peracarida) to North America and Europe. Aq. Inv., 10(2): 177-187.LAVESQUE, N., J.C. SORBE, G. BACHELET, B. GOUIL-LIEUX, X. DE MONTAUDOUIN, P. BONIFACIO, H. BLANCHET & S. DUBOIS. 2013. Recent dis-covery of Paranthura japonica Richardson, 1909 (Crustacea: Isopoda: Paranthuridae) 335Marchini et al.: Confirming predictions: the invasive isopod Ianiropsis serricaudis Gurjanova, 1936  ...in European marine waters (Arcachon Bay, Bay of Biscay). BioInvasions Rec., 2(3): 215-219.MARCHINI, A., R. SCONFIETTI & T. KRAPP-SCHICK-EL. 2007. Role of the artificial structures on biodiversity: the case of arthropod fauna in the N-Adriatic lagoons. Studi Trent. Sci. Nat. Acta Biol., 83: 27-31.MARCHINI, A., J-C. SORBE, F. TORELLI, A. LODOLA & A. OCCHIPINTI-AMBROGI. 2014. The non-indigenous Paranthura japonica Richard-son, 1909 in the Mediterranean Sea: trav-elling with shellfish? Mediterr. Mar. Sci., 15(3): 545-553.MINCHIN, D. 2007. Aquaculture and transport in a changing environment: Overlap and links in the spread of alien biota. Mar. Pollut. Bull., 55(7): 302-313.OCCHIPINTI-AMBROGI, A., A. MARCHINI, G. CAN-TONE, A. CASTELLI, C. CHIMENZ, M. COR-MACI, C. FROGLIA, G. FURNARI, M.C. GAMBI, G. GIACCONE, A. GIANGRANDE, C. GRAVILI, F. MASTROTOTARO, C. MAZZIOTTI, L. ORSI-RELINI & S. PIRAINO. 2011. Alien species along the Italian coasts: an overview. Biol. Invasions, 13(1): 215-237.OJAVEER, H., B.S. GALIL, S. GOLLASH, A. MAR-CHINI, D. MINCHIN, A. OCCHIPINTI-AMBROGI & S. OLENIN. 2014. Identifying the top issues of marine invasive alien species in Europe. Manag. Biol. Invasion., 5(2): 81-84.ROS, M., J.M. GUERRA-GARCÍA, C. NAVARRO-BAR-RANCO, M.P. CABEZAS & M. VÁZQUEZ-LUIS. 2014. The spreading of the non-native caprel-lid (Crustacea: Amphipoda) Caprella scaura Templeton, 1836 into southern Europe and northern Africa: a complicated taxonomic history. Mediterr. Mar. Sci., 15, 145-155.SCONFIETTI, R. 1988. Researches on spatial dis-tribution of amphipods, isopods and tan-aids (Peracarida) in a Mediterranean estuary (River Dese, Lagoon of Venice). Crusta-ceana, 55(2): 193-201.SCONFIETTI, R., A. MARCHINI, A. OCCHIPINTI-AMBROGI & C.F. SACCHI. 2003. The sessile benthic community patterns on hard bottoms in response to continental vs. marine influ-ence in Northern Adriatic lagoons. Oceanol. Acta, 26(1): 47-56.Received: 15 February 2015Accepted: 29 August 2016336  ACTA ADRIATICA, 57(2): 331 - 336, 2016Potvrda predviđanja: venecijanska laguna (Italija) obiluje invazivnim jednakonošcem Ianiropsis serricaudis Gurjanova, 1936 (Crustacea: Peracarida) Agnese MARCHINI, Jasmine FERRARIO* i Anna OCCHIPINTI-AMBROGI*Kontakt e-adresa: jasmine.ferrario@unipv.itSAŽETAKJaniridni jednakonošci Ianiropsis serricaudis, koji izvorno potječu iz sjeverozapadne pacifičke regije, nedavno su identificirani kao alohtona vrsta na nekoliko lokaliteta u sjevernoj hemisferi. Ovime iznosimo dokaze o njihovom pojavljivanju u Sredozemnom moru, i to u venecijanskoj laguni (Italija). Ovi nalazi potvrđuju tezu da je ova vrsta rasprostranjenija u Europi nego što se mislilo, ali se o njoj dugo vremena malo izvješćivalo zbog veličine jednakonožaca (većina je veličinom varirala između 3 i 20 mm) te zbog taksonomske složenosti roda. Ključne riječi: morski rakovi, alohtone vrste, onečišćenje, lagune

Potvrda predviđanja: venecijanska laguna (Italija) obiluje invazivnim jednakonošcem Ianiropsis serricaudis Gurjanova, 1936 (Crustacea: Peracarida)

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Potvrda predviđanja: venecijanska laguna (Italija) obiluje invazivnim jednakonošcem Ianiropsis serricaudis Gurjanova, 1936 (Crustacea: Peracarida)

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