Anna Occhipinti

University of Pavia | UNIPV · Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

The Working Group on Ballast and Other Ship Vectors under the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, and Inter-national Maritime Organization (ICES/IOC/IMO WGBOSV) aims to provide scientific support to international decision-making to reduce the risk of spread and establishment of...

The role of navigation in transporting and introducing non-indigenous species (NIS) in ports is globally acknowledged, and maritime traffic is correlated with increasing NIS introductions. On the other hand, different types of vessels can occur in a port (e.g., for commercial or recreational purposes) and the success of a NIS in a new area also dep...

The composition of fouling community was evaluated in two sites in the sea stretch between Porto Venere and the Palmaria Island (Ligurian Sea, Italy), which is subject to marine protection, in order to estimate patterns of presence of non-indigenous species (NIS). Image analysis was applied to assess the percent cover of the fouling species monitor...

To enrich spatio-temporal information on the distribution of alien, cryptogenic, and neonative species in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, a collective effort by 173 marine scientists was made to provide unpublished records and make them open access to the scientific community. Through this effort, we collected and harmonized a dataset of 12,64...

The role of native predators in controlling or facilitating non-indigenous species (NIS) growing in a fouling assemblage was investigated with a 70-day caging experiment in a marina inside the Gulf of La Spezia (Italy). Submerged PVC panels were divided into three experimental treatment levels: “control panels”, “open-caged panels” and “caged panel...

The goal of the ICES Working Group on the Introduction and Transfers of Marine Organisms (WGITMO) is to contribute to the ICES vision and mission by addressing specific science objectives related to the introduction, spread and impacts of non-indigenous marine species (NIS). The expert working group provides information and advice on the impacts of...

Biotic resistance is considered an important driver in the establishment of non-indigenous species (NIS), but experiments in the marine environment have led to contradictory results. In this context, a transplant experiment of fouling communities was carried out over five months. Settlement panels were moved from low impact (species-rich native com...

Human-induced biological introductions pose a major threat to global biodiversity, and this is especially frequent in the eastern Mediterranean region, which is a globally important biodiversity hotspot area of high conservation value. To predict at which level introduced species in this region might become invasive under current and projected clim...

Baseline port monitoring for fouling communities is an essential tool to assess non-indigenous species (NIS) introduction and spread, but a standardized and coordinated method among Mediterranean and European countries has not yet been adopted. In this context, it is important to test monitoring protocols that allow for the collection of standardiz...

http://www.marinespecies.org/introduced

Biopollution by alien species is considered one of the main threats to environmental health. The marine environment, traditionally less studied than inland domains, has been the object of recent work that is reviewed here. Increasing scientific evidence has been accumulated worldwide on ecosystem deterioration induced by the development of massive...

Fouling communities occurring in sites lightly or no affected by anthropogenic impacts are usually composed by an array of native species, in contrast with areas highly impacted (e.g. ports and marinas), where alien species often dominate these communities. The “biotic resistance” hypothesis, i.e. the capability of highly bio-diverse native communi...

How climate change can favour the spread of the Invasive Alien Species

Aim The introduction of aquatic non‐indigenous species (ANS) has become a major driver for global changes in species biogeography. We examined spatial patterns and temporal trends of ANS detections since 1965 to inform conservation policy and management. Location Global. Methods We assembled an extensive dataset of first records of detection of A...

Good datasets of geo-referenced records of alien species are a prerequisite for assessing the spatio-temporal dynamics of biological invasions, their invasive potential, and the magnitude of their impacts. However, with the exception of first records on a country level or wider regions, observations of species presence tend to remain unpublished, b...

Good datasets of geo-referenced records of alien species are a prerequisite for assessing the spatio-temporal dynamics of biological invasions, their invasive potential, and the magnitude of their impacts. However, with the exception of first records on a country level or wider regions, observations of species presence tend to remain unpublished, b...

1. The disproportionately low presence of marine species in the list of invasive alien species (IAS) of Union concern of the European Union (EU) Regulation 1143/2014 does not fully acknowledge the threat they pose to the EU marine environment. 2. In this study, the first EU-scale Horizon Scanning (HS) focusing on marine alien species was performed,...

Traffic vessels is considered the most important pathway of introduction of Non-Indigenous species (NIS). The spread of organisms and propagules occurs mainly through ballast water and biofouling. Artificial structures in harbors and marinas, provide suitable habitat for the settlement of NIS. Investigations carried out in the marinas of the easter...

Despite the Mediterranean being both a hotspot for recreational boating and for non‐indigenous species (NIS), no data currently exists on the recreational boating sector's contribution to the spread of NIS in this Sea. To improve the basis for management decisions, a wide‐scale sampling study on the biofouling communities of recreational vessels an...

The Working Group on the Introductions and Transfers of Marine Organisms (WGITMO) has contributed several major achievements to the ICES vision, including the first ICES Viewpoint on Biofouling and its source document, two Cooperative Research Reports, and numerous pub-lications related to ToRs, and the continued population of the AquaNIS database....

Managing invasive alien species is particularly challenging in the ocean mainly because marine ecosystems are highly connected across broad spatial scales. Eradication of marine invasive species has only been achieved when species were detected early, and management responded rapidly. Generalized approaches, transferable across marine regions, for...

• Factors shaping non-indigenous species (NIS) richness are tested in the Mediterranean. • There is a higher trend of NIS richness going from east to west in the Mediterranean. • NIS richness in marinas is mainly influenced by proximity to other major vectors. • NIS similarities between marinas are more influenced by environmental factors. • The Su...

Biofouled vessels create novel, mobile habitats characterized by great abundances of opportunistic and non-native species. Vessel biofouling affects the environment as well as the economics of vessel management. If established in new regions, these vessel-transported species can affect gene flow, population dynamics, community structure, distributi...

A large-scale analysis of fouling assemblages from 367 recreational boat hulls was carried out in 2015-2016 in 20 Mediterranean marinas from France, Italy, Malta, Greece and Turkey. A total of 155 species, including native, cryptogenic and non-indigenous species (NIS), were identified. On the average, 2.5±1.9 NIS were collected from boat hulls, and...

An international standardized monitoring protocol for sessile fouling species was employed for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea. Native and non-indigenous species (NIS) composition was assessed in five ports in the Gulf of La Spezia (Ligurian Sea, Italy). Significant differences in mean NIS percentage cover was observed among ports, and the...

The EU regulation on the prevention and management of the introduction and spread of invasive alien species (IAS) is based on the core concept of "IAS of EU concern": species to be targeted for action. Besides the existing, and continuously being updated, European list, Italy is developing its own national list. Here we describe the process of deve...

Glacier melting and permafrost thawing are the most evident effects of the current climate change that is strongly affecting high mountain areas, including the European Alps. As the thawing rate of subsurface ice is lower than for glacier ice, it is expected that, while glaciers retreat, an increasing number of Alpine headwaters will become more in...

This paper provides an inventory of non-indigenous bryozoan species (NIB) recorded in the Mediterranean Sea. Taking into account previous NIB lists and updated non-indigenous concept, a careful literature review was carried out, reporting data on 33 NIB from 14 Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy,...

The human-mediated introduction of marine non-indigenous species is a centuries- if not millennia-old phenomenon, but was only recently acknowledged as a potent driver of change in the sea. We provide a synopsis of key historical milestones for marine bioinvasions, including timelines of (a) discovery and understanding of the invasion process, focu...

Intentional and unintentional introductions of marine species into the Mediterranean date back to the 15th century, when maritime shipping expanded with geographical discoveries and new mercantile horizons. Hull fouling on ships was recognized as a vector in the late 19th century, yet early introductions were overlooked because they had occurred ce...

A rapid assessment of the fouling community in the harbour of Piran, Slovenia, was carried out in September 2017. A total of 59 species were collected, from which 6 were non-indigenous species, all representing new records for Slovenia and 2 of which are also new records for the Adriatic Sea. The usefulness of rapid assessment monitoring programmes...

Bryozoan records from the shores and upper shelf (≤50 m depth) of the remote Azores Archipelago (central North Atlantic) have been analyzed, along with unpublished data and data from recent surveys. A checklist of 67 shallow-water species is hereby compiled for the region, of which more than one third represent records from campaigns conducted duri...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.7717/peerj.3954.].

The Mediterranean Sea is home to over 2/3 of the world's charter boat traffic and hosts an estimated 1.5 million recreational boats. Studies elsewhere have demonstrated marinas as important hubs for the stepping-stone transfer of non-indigenous species (NIS), but these unique anthropogenic, and typically artificial habitats have largely gone overlo...

Supplementary Data: Specimen Photos.

Supplementary Data: Key Taxonomic Characters used for identification and Table with the number of visiting vessels per annum per marina.

We report media coverage of marine invasive species introduced into the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal and the possible impact of its recent enlargement. We explored news websites in 30 countries, mainly European, using “Google news” search engine, for relevant articles. Our starting point for the search was the online publication of a letter...

The role of commercial harbours as sink and source habitats for non-indigenous species (NIS) and the role of recreational boating for their secondary spread were investigated by analysing the fouling community of five Italian harbours and five marinas in the western Mediterranean Sea. It was first hypothesised that NIS assemblages in the recreation...

Foreword Over the past few years, new records and reports of non-native species have provided additional insight into the potential vectors and spread of introduced pathogens, plants, and animals. This five-year report brings together and summarizes the nonnative species introductions reported in annual reports to the Working Group on Introductions...

Didemnum vexillum Kott (2002) is a high-impact, globally-invasive, colonial tunicate species that is native to Japan (Lambert, 2009; Stefaniak et al., 2012). It is generally a temperate cold-water organism, and its introduced range currently includes New Zealand, the Netherlands, France, Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and both the west and...

Didemnum vexillum Kott (2002) is a high-impact, globally-invasive, colonial tunicate species that is native to Japan (Lambert, 2009; Stefaniak et al., 2012). It is generally a temperate cold-water organism, and its introduced range currently includes New Zealand, the Netherlands, France, Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and both the west and...

ELEMENTI DI ECOLOGIA di Thomas M Smith e Robert L Smith Edizione Italiana a cura di Anna Occhipinti-Ambrogi e Agnese Marchini Il volume offre una panoramica completa sugli argomenti trattati dalla moderna ecologia. In particolare, specifici capitoli sono dedicati a temi diventati di grande attualità o di rilevanza per le ricadute applicative. Un n...

The Suez Canal is the main pathway of introduction of non-indigenous species into the Mediterranean Sea. The successive enlargements of the Suez Canal have raised concern over increasing propagule pressure resulting in continuous introductions of new non-indigenous species and associated degradation and loss of native populations, habitats and ecos...

Biological invasions are continuously expanding worldwide, including the aquatic environments in Italy, where non-indigenous inverte- brates represent the majority of non-indigenous taxa. Despite this, the public is not adequately aware of their potential impacts in aquatic environments, as concern is more focused on larger-sized species. From a th...

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 Venice (Italy). This finding confirms the hypothesis that this spe...

Abstract Recreational boating is an unregulated and underestimated vector of spread of non-indigenous species (NIS) in marine environments. The risk of a single boat to spread NIS depends not only on the local environmental context, but also on the type of boat and on the boat owner's behaviour (hull cleaning and painting frequency, travel history)...

The macroinvertebrate assemblage in Olbia (Sardinia, Italy) was analysed for occurrence of marine alien species. Two main vectors of introduction operate in this area: vessels and aquaculture. The comparison with alien species assemblages of other three Italian localities connected to Olbia by different pathways (vessels: Genoa, Leghorn; aquacultur...

Using stable isotope analysis, we investigated trophic interactions between indigenous benthic taxa and the non-indigenous species (NIS): the green alga Caulerpa cylindracea, the red alga Asparagopsis taxiformis, the crab Percnon gibbesi and the sea hare Aplysia dactylomela. The study was conducted in Lampedusa Island, Mediterranean Sea. We evaluat...

Leisure-craft mooring lines were surveyed in six berthing areas along the Croatian coast during June 2014. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of non-indigenous species (NIS) on mooring lines known as ‘lazy’ lines. Four NIS were observed during the survey: the tunicate Styela plicata, the serpulid Hydroides elegans and two bryozoa...

Nine non-indigenous species and seven cryptogenic species were recorded in the marina of Rome in 2015 in the framework of a Mediterranean-wide survey of non-indigenous species in marinas. The non-indigenous bryozoan Amathia verticillata was by far the most abundant fouling species in the marina, also occurring on many boats.

The anthuroid isopod Eisothistos macrurus is here reported from the marinas of Santa Margherita Ligure (Liguria) and Porto Rotondo (Sardinia). Previously, this species was only known from the Gulf of Naples (type locality), and from the coasts of Israel and Gibraltar. Since E. macrurus displays very scarce capability of autonomous spread, its curre...

The European Non-native Species in Aquaculture Risk Analysis Scheme (ENSARS) was developed in response to European ‘Council Regulation No. 708/2007 of 11 June 2007 concerning use of alien and locally absent species in aquaculture’ to provide protocols for identifying and evaluating the potential risks of using non-native species in aquaculture. ENS...

In the marine environment, control of invasive species’ population levels, that is, keeping them at an abundance level which is below a density-dependent adverse effect, may be the most attainable goal for the management of introduced bryozoans. An improved understanding of reproductive strategies and life history traits is key in order to understa...

The biological traits of the sixty-eight most widespread multicellular non-indigenous species (MWNIS) in European Seas: Baltic Sea, Western European Margin of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea were examined. Data for nine biological traits was analyzed, and a total of 41 separate categories were used to describe the biological and ecolog...

Theme: Biological Invasions Keywords: alien, non-­‐indigenous species, NIS, Mediterranean, recreational boating. This study seeks to identify the hotspots for the secondary spread of non-­‐indigenous species (NIS) resulting for recreational boating travel patterns across the Mediterranean Sea, and investigate the potential for internal spread withi...

The Pacific cheilostome bryozoan Celleporaria brunnea (Hincks, 1884), a non-indigenous species already known for the Mediterranean Sea, was recorded in 2013-2014 from nine Italian port localities (Genoa, Santa Margherita Ligure, La Spezia, Leghorn, Viareggio, Olbia, Porto Rotondo, Porto Torres and Castelsardo) in the North-western Mediterranean Sea...

Il Gruppo Specie Alloctone (GSA) della SIBM è stato costituito nel 1999, su indicazione dell'allora Presidente Prof. Giulio Relini (Università di Genova), che ha poi costantemente seguito e sostenuto le attività nel corso del tempo. Vi hanno preso parte a diverse riprese più di 100 ricercatori provenienti da vari Atenei e Centri di Ricerca italiani...

This poster is describing the objectives and sampling strategy of a PhD project on marine bioinvasions. 30 marinas will be sampled for alien species across the Mediterranean, along with at least 20 recreational boats from each marina. From this data, recreational boating connectivity patterns will be learned along with the marinas presenting the hi...

At 726 the number of recorded multicellular non indigenous species (NIS) in the Mediterranean Sea is far higher than in other European Seas. Of these, 614 have established populations in the sea. 384 are considered Erythraean NIS, the balance are mostly ship and culture-introductions. In order to effectively implement EU Regulation on the preventio...

In the Mediterranean Sea, recreational boating is an underestimated and unregulated vector of non-indigenous species (NIS) introduction and spread. Furthermore, travel and hull maintenance (e.g. cleaning) habits of recreational boaters are largely unknown. In order to quantify the risk of fouling by NIS and consequent spreading of caused by recreat...

The Pacific cheilostome bryozoan Celleporaria brunnea (Hincks, 1884), a non-indigenous species already known for the Mediterranean Sea, was recorded in 2013-2014 from nine Italian port localities (Genoa, Santa Margherita Ligure, La Spezia, Leghorn, Viareggio, Olbia, Porto Rotondo, Porto Torres and Castelsardo) in the North-western Mediterranean Sea...

This study seeks to identify the hotspots for the secondary spread of non-indigenous species (NIS) resulting for recreational boating travel patterns across the Mediterranean Sea, and investigate the potential for internal spread within each study region. Three Mediterranean regions will be sampled for: 1) NIS richness in the marinas and NIS richne...