Abstract
Over the past 60-70 years, the invasive Indo-Pacific coral Tubastraea coccinea (Lesson 1830; Cnidaria, Scleractinia) has colonized the western tropical Atlantic Ocean - the Americas, the Antilles, northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM), and many of its 3,600 oil/gas platforms. It is now the single, most abundant coral on artificial substrata in the GOM, with hundreds of thousands of colonies on a single platform. Here, we report for the first time the observation of a closely related congener in the western Atlantic – the Indo-Pacific azooxanthellate Tubastraea micranthus (Ehrenberg 1834) – and suggest that it may pose a threat similar to T. coccinea. A total of 83 platforms, including deep-water, toppled, Rigs-to-Reefs structures, were surveyed in the northern Gulf of Mexico between 2000 and 2009, from Matagorda Island, Texas to Mobile, Alabama, USA, between the depths of 7 and 37 m, by SCUBA divers. Five platforms were surveyed by Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to depths of up to 117 m. T. micranthus was found on only one platform – Grand Isle 93 (GI-93), off Port Fourchon, Louisiana, near the Mississippi River mouth, at the cross-roads of two major safety fairways/shipping lanes transited by large international commercial ships. The
Highlights
In recent times, intentional species introductions have been of concern because of their secondary impacts on the natural environment and local species (Secord 2003)
The tentacles of T. micranthus were sometimes grey in color. (The pigmentation is derived from the tissue, because this species, like its congeners, is azoo-xanthellate.)
The fact that Tubastraea micranthus was observed at only one site within the entire survey area covering the northern Gulf of Mexico suggests that this is a very recent introduction
Summary
Intentional species introductions have been of concern because of their secondary impacts on the natural environment and local species (Secord 2003). An example of an introduced species widely distributed from the northern temperate waters through western Atlantic tropical coral reefs (Chapman 1999) is the Japanese/Siberian marine alga Codium fragile (Suringar; Hariot 1889), common throughout the western Atlantic (Trowbridge 1998; Pederson 2000; Williams 2007). Another example is the Indo-Pacific volitan lionfish (Pterois volitans Linnaeus 1758), released into western Atlantic waters > 10 years ago (Whitfield et al 2002; Hamner et al 2007) and distributed from New York through the Caribbean
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