Jose A. Cuesta

Spanish National Research Council | CSIC · Instituto de Ciencias Marinas de Andalucía

As the number of introduced species keeps increasing unabatedly, identifying and prioritising current and potential Invasive Alien Species (IAS) has become essential to manage them. Horizon Scanning (HS), defined as an exploration of potential threats, is considered a fundamental component of IAS management. By combining scientific knowledge on tax...

One male and two female specimens of an undescribed species of the heterogeneous hermit crab genus Pagurus Fabricius, 1775, were found during the study of the collections of the Oceanographic Institute of Cádiz, containing specimens from African and European coasts collected during the scientific cruises carried out between in years 2008-2013. The...

The invasive Atlantic blue crab Callinectes sapidus has considerably extended its distribution along the Gulf of Cadiz and Moroccan coasts in the northeast Atlantic. This could indicate a new introduction event in the Gulf of Cadiz from the native area, in case of detectable genetic differences from the Mediterranean Sea populations. To test this a...

Weakfish (Cynoscion regalis) has been present in Iberian waters since at least 2011, when it was first recorded in the Guadalquivir estuary. Little is known about the preferences and feeding strategies of weakfish outside of its native range; therefore, in this work, we carried out a comprehensive study between March 2021 and September 2021 to eluc...

Climate change may enhance the establishment of introduced species, as well as the poleward shift in distribution of numerous species over decades. Long-term research and monitoring of an ecosystem at the southernmost point of the Atlantic coast of Europe should be an important priority in order to detect and understand trends in species compositio...

Integrative taxonomy studies have allowed us to clarify some taxonomic problems in cryptic species within species of InachusWeber, 1795 with two protogastric tubercles found in European waters. Several morphotypes of Inachus phalangium (Fabricius, 1775) are recognized, and a new species is described from the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula,...

A new hermit crab species of the genus Diogenes with reddish‐orange cheliped, Diogenes erythromanus sp. nov., is described and illustrated based on specimens from the Mediterranean coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, southern Spain. In addition, a second morphotype originating from Mauritanian waters and morphologically very close to D. erythromanus s...

Some of the elements in the rocky intertidal zone, such as boulders, act as a refuge, mating, feeding and nursery areas for marine fauna. In the present study, we analysed the population structure of the intertidal stone crab Xantho poressa in a human-restricted area, between March 2019 and February 2020, comprised of a rocky shore along the SW Atl...

First record of the white prawn Palaemon longirostris H. Milne Edwards, 1837 in the Med-iterranean waters of Morocco. In this paper, we provide the first record of the white prawn Palaemon longirostris, a palaemonid shrimp with socioeconomic interests, in the northeastern coasts of Morocco, and the third confirmed record for the Mediterranean. Futu...

Examination of material from the coasts of the Iberian Peninsula and nearby areas has revealed that more than one species is mixed under the name for the common diogenid hermit crab, Diogenes pugilator. In this study, three species are recognized, primarily on the basis of a combination of morphological characters and live colour patterns. Diogenes...

Since its first record in Europe as an exotic species back in 2009 at the Schelde estuary (Belgium), the weakfish Cynoscion regalis -native from North America East coast- has increased its presence in the Iberian Peninsula waters. Identified for the first time in the Guadalquivir River estuary (2011) and later in the Sado estuary (2014), C. regalis...

An updated checklist of Mozambican marine brachyuran crabs is generated based on an exhaustive revision of the existing literature, together with the additional records provided by the specimens collected throughout the three “MOZAMBIQUE” surveys carried out in Mozambican waters during three consecutive years (2007–2009) by the Instituto Español de...

Megalopas of 15 brachyuran crab species collected in the open sea plankton, and unknown until now, were identified using DNA barcodes (COI and 16S rRNA). Specimens belonging to the families Portunidae, Pseudorhombilidae and Xanthidae (Crustacea, Decapoda, Brachyura), and corresponding to the species Achelous floridanus, Arenaeus mexicanus, Callinec...

Temperature is a well-known environmental factor that affects the survival rate and development times of larvae in many brachyuran species. Intertidal species, such as the stone crab Xantho poressa are subject to aquatic and aerial temperature conditions, which make them suitable model species to analyse the effects of climate change. In this study...

Se presenta una lista actualizada de las especies exóticas que se encuentran en etapa de establecimiento o de propagación de la invasión en aguas continentales de la península ibérica. La lista está basada en la evaluación sistemática de los datos en colaboración con un amplio equipo de expertos de España y Portugal. Esta lista de actualización es...

An updated list is presented of the alien species in the establishment or spread invasion stage in in-land waters at the Iberian Peninsula. The list is based on a systematic assessment of information in collaboration with a wide expert team from Spain and Portugal. This updated list is an important tool supporting the implementation of the IAS Regu...

An updated list is presented of the alien species in the transport or introduction invasion stage in inland waters of the Iberian Peninsula. The list is based on a systematic assessment of information in collaboration with a wide expert team from Spain and Portugal. This list is an important tool to support the implementation of the IAS Regulation,...

The importance of marinas as infrastructures for recreational boating is increasing substantially. However, information on their soft-bottom benthic communities, a key tool for managing programmes, is still scarce. We combined environment features with macro- and meiofaunal soft-bottom community information for assessing the ecological status of ma...

The study of the recent colonisation of a symbiont and its interaction with host communities in new locations is an opportunity to understand how they interact. The use of isotopic ratios in trophic ecology can provide measurements of a species’ isotopic niche, as well as knowledge about how the isotopic niches between symbiont and host species ove...

The real distribution range of a species is mostly unknown due to the lack of sampling in certain regions in the world. This may be especially problematic for freshwater species in the Mediterranean basin since its freshwater inhabitants are taxa highly sensitive to anthropogenic disturbances. The cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene in Atyaephy...

Observations of previously unrecorded non-native species in the Gulf of Cadiz (Spain), situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, have accelerated since 1980, and increased rapidly in the past 5 years. Four new records of decapod crustaceans have been detected in this region: the African snapping shrimp Alpheus sp., the West Afr...

The first case of abnormal leucism in the European Sardine or Pilchard Sardina pilchardus (Walbaum, 1792) is reported. A few sardines with abnormal pigmentation were captured by fishermen in the northern part of the Gulf of Cadiz (SW Atlantic coast), between Portugal and Spain, and one specimen was presented to the authors for examination. Species...

The first zoeal stages of the snapping shrimps Alpheus carlae and A. intrinsecus from Brazil were obtained from laboratory-hatched specimens and a detailed morphological description is provided. The morphological characteristics of both species are compared with available descriptions of other Alpheus species with a known first zoeal stage. Remarks...

Small crabs belonging to the family Pinnotheridae are characterized by living inside mainly bivalves. In European waters the recently-described pea crab Pinnotheres bicristatus increased to five the known number of pinnotherid species. The know distribution of the recently-described pea crab Pinnotheres bicristatus encompassed the area between the...

Effects of temperature on the survival of the pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi, and on its realized fecundity (number of eggs) and actual fecundity (number of zoeas) were experimentally estimated on individuals from the Gulf of Cadiz (Huelva and Cadiz) at Southwestern Spain. The adult crabs of different demographic categories (soft females, hard fem...

West African species of Scyllarus Fabricius, 1775 (Achelata, Scyllaridae) are poorly known, mostly due to the difficulties of sampling Eastern Atlantic tropical waters. Recent expeditions carried out by the Universidad de Cádiz and the Instituto Español de Oceanografía collected phyllosoma larvae from Cape Verde Islands (CVI) and fresh Scyllarus ad...

Pinnotheridae comprises a diverse group of small crabs that live as symbionts with invertebrates. All Pinnotheridae are marine species with a worldwide distribution, living in close relationship with their hosts. Independently of the type of host or symbiotic relationship (parasitic, commensalistic), all species with known larval development presen...

The present study reports the occurrence of several specimens of the African caridean shrimp Lysmata uncicornis Holthuis & Maurin, 1952 in the NE Atlantic coast (Gulf of Cadiz, Spain and the Algarve, Portugal). Lysmata uncicornis is a poorly studied species that has been originally described from the Atlantic waters of Morocco, where it was first c...

A new behavior related to shell care was recently reported for the intertidal hermit crab Clibanarius erythropus (Latreille, 1818) in the Gulf of Cádiz (southwestern Europe). It also has been observed in other species of the diogenid genera Clibanarius Dana, 1952, and Calcinus Dana, 1951, however, it has not been described as an active behavior. In...

The zoeal development of the brachyuran crab, Palicus caronii, comprises two zoeal stages and the morphology is described and illustrated in detail. The zoeae were collected in plankton samples from the Southern Ligurian Sea (Western Mediterranean). Although the morphology of the larval stages of this species was unknown, a combination of character...

The African parasitic pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi lives in association with a high number of different bivalve species, although in its reproductive phase (soft females) a high prevalence has been observed infesting mainly intertidal Mytilus galloprovincialis. In recent years this pea crab has been recorded in the south of Iberian Peninsula, wi...

Very few mass stranding events of invertebrates have been reported. In this paper, we report a mass stranding of multiple benthic organisms occurred at Punta Umbría beach (S Spain) after the passage of storm Emma (28 February to 5 March 2018). The most abundant organisms were identified, and exceptional meteorological and oceanographic events were...

As many other Pinnotherid crabs, the African pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi live in association with the mantle cavity of different bivalve species. This pea crab causes a significant reduction of the condition index of the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis. The greatest effects brought about for the infestation with soft females (larger size and o...

Within a wider project oriented to the complete revision of the Iberian hermit crabs, both from the morphological and molecular perspective, the revision of the genus Anapagurus arise as one of the main challenges. Given that more than 50% of the existing species of the genus Anapagurus are present in Iberian waters, there is an unsurpassable oppor...

As part of an ongoing taxonomic revision of the hermit crabs of the Iberian Peninsula, information on the associations they establish with other organisms is being collected. Samples included in this study, come from direct sampling by scuba diving mainly along the coasts of Galicia and Andalucía. Fourteen species belonging to 6 different Phyla ha...

The complete larval development of Petrolisthes tuberculatus (including two zoeal stages and the megalopa) is described and illustrated in detail for the first time, based on laboratory-reared material. In order to allow the differentiation of specimens from plankton samples, the larval stages of P. tuberculatus are compared with those known for ot...

The taxonomy of Munida Leach, 1820 from the north-eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea was studied using a comparative analysis of morphological characters and molecular markers (mitochondrial and nuclear). Generalized Mixed Yule Coalescence and the Poisson tree process models were used to delimit two groups of closely related species associated...

After the recent detection, by both morphology and DNA barcodes, of the larval stages of an unknown species of pea crab ( Pinnotheres sp.) in European waters, adults of this crab are herein reported and described as a new species. The current known geographic distribution of the species comprises the Gulf of Cádiz in the eastern Atlantic and the ad...

The brush-clawed shore crab Hemigrapsus takanoi is a native species from the Western Pacific and an invader of the European Atlantic coast from northern Spain to southern Denmark. Despite the increasing concern about its rapid expansion, little is known about the early stages in its life history. In the present study, the larval morphology of H. ta...

An annotated checklist of the marine decapod crustaceans (excluding crabs) of the Iberian Peninsula has been compiled 50 years after the publication of “Crustáceos decápodos ibéricos” by Zariquiey Álvarez (1968). A total of 293 species belonging to 136 genera and 48 families has been recorded. This information increases by 116 species the total num...

The marine parasitic African pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi Manning, 1993 has well-established populations in the gulf of Cadiz, where it is invasive. In this study, its tolerance to temperature and salinity variation during larval development were studied in the laboratory. Larvae were reared in seawater (salinity 36) at different temperatures (5...

The family Porcellanidae Haworth, 1825, is represented by 15 species ascribed to 5 genera in continental coastal waters from Chile [1-8]. Four megalopal stages corresponding to the species Liopetrolisthes mitra (Dana, 1852), Megalobrachium peruvianum (Haig, 1960), Petrolisthes tuberculatus (Guérin, 1835) and Petrolisthes tuberculosus (H. Milne Edwa...

Tradicionalmente, el estudio de los cangrejos ermitaños (superfamilia Paguroidea) ha estado basado en la descripción y comparación de caracteres morfológicos a veces difíciles de evaluar, lo que ha derivado en muchos casos en dificultades a la hora de delimitar claramente las especies. La combinación de los estudios morfológicos con análisis de fil...

Some pea crabs are parasite of bivalves and may cause a significant effect on the host's condition. In this study, the prevalence of the pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi and its effect on host condition are assessed for two commercially important bivalves (the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis and the cockle Cerastoderma edule) from three natural bed...

Taxonomic rearrangements were recently proposed for some members of Portunus Weber and Cronius Stimpson, including the re-elevation of the status of the subgenus Achelous De Haan to accommodate 21 American species. In the present study the first zoea of Achelous spinimanus, type species of the genus, A. gibbesii and Portunus sayi were obtained from...

Global patterns of planktonic diversity are mainly determined by the dispersal of propagules with ocean currents. However, the role that abundance and body size play in determining spatial patterns of diversity remains unclear. Here we analyse spatial community structure - β-diversity - for several planktonic and nektonic organisms from prokaryotes...

Predatory behavior of the crab Eriphia verrucosa (Forskål, 1775) on the oyster Magallana angulata (Lamarck, 1819), the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis Lamarck, 1819, the limpet Patella depressa Pennant, 1777, the hermit crab Clibanarius erythropus (Latreille, 1818), the gastropod Phorcus lineatus (da Costa, 1778) and the sea urchin Paracentrotus l...

Rocky intertidal habitats harbor unique and diverse ecosystems that, when located in accessible area, result highly attractive to human visitors. It is known that many activities caused by humans, such as, rock overturning, trampling and organisms' collection harm rocky shore ecosystems, reducing the biodiversity, modifying abundance and altering n...

The postembryonic larval stages of Mithrax tortugae are described, illustrated and compared with the described zoeae of other Mithrax species. Mithrax tortugae showed morphological features in all the stages of larval development that differed from those observed in other species of Mithrax, especially M. hispidus. In the Zoea I stage, M. tortugae...

DNA methods may contribute to better understand larval dispersal of marine lobsters. The molecular analysis of phyllosoma specimens from the East Atlantic facilitated for the first time here the description of Scyllarus subarctus Crosnier, 1970 larvae. The identification of S. subarctus phyllosomae from Cabo Verde confirmed that this species has a...

Currently, there are five species of pea crabs in European waters. In the context of the AFROBIV project, in which the effect of the African pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi on bivalve species of commercial interest is being studied, a sampling campaign has been carried out on bivalve species of the coasts of southwestern Europe. The results of this...

Four species of Pinnotheridae inhabit European marine waters, Afropinnotheres monodi , Nepinnotheres pinnotheres , Pinnotheres pectunculi and Pinnotheres pisum . For these four species there are data available on the morphology of their larval stages as well as DNA markers. This information has allowed us to detect some larvae in plankton samples f...

The knowledge gap in larval taxonomy hinders population dynamic studies in brachyuran crabs, particularly those dealing with larval dispersal and recruitment. In order to fill this gap for the Iberian Peninsula, which had no previous specific larval taxonomic guide, an identification key was developed including data for the megalopae of 66% (93 out...

Planktonic larvae are the main mechanism used by crabs to disperse and settle at new territories. Since there were no previous studies on the community of Brachyuran larvae in the Guadalquivir estuary, it has been sampled monthly for a year (from February 2012 to January 2013) in two sampling stations, located at 8 and 20 km from the mouth. In each...

Recent studies have reported an unusually high frequency of nonamplifying alleles at microsatellite loci in bivalves. Null alleles have been associated with heterozygous deficits in many studies. While several studies have tested for its presence using different analytical tools, few have empirically tested for its consequences in estimating popula...

Clustering analysis in STRUCTURE considering information about population of origin ( k = 2) Individuals are represented as vertical bars, where the amount of each colour indicates the proportion of each inferred cluster. A represents the clusters obtained in the simulations considering the absence of null alleles while B represents those assuming...

Private alleles for each locus in the South Atlantic Coast of Spain (SA) and the South Mediterranean Coast of Spain (SM) respectively

Average level of individuals’ assignment for the South Atlantic Coast of Spain and the South Mediterranean Coast’s populations The results issued from the software Structure present the average of the level of individuals’ assignment (percentage ±SD) using the 16 loci and when removing a different locus for each run.

Databases used for the analyses We provide three databases: the database we used for the analyses (16 loci), the database with the original annealing temperature (10 loci), and the database with the new annealing temperature (10 loci).