First records of Aoroides longimerus Ren and Zheng, 1996, and A. semicurvatus Ariyama, 2004 (Crustacea, Amphipoda), in the English Channel, France

Jean-Claude Dauvin,Jean-Philippe Pezy,Aurore Raoux

doi:10.3391/bir.2020.9.4.10

Abstract

Two Pacific amphipod species, Aoroides longimerus (94 individuals) and A. semicurvatus (three individuals), were recorded for the first time in 2019 in the English Channel. Aoroides longimerus was found in four sites along the Normandy coast (Granville, Cherbourg, Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue, and Le Havre) while A. semicurvatus was found only in two sites (Granville and Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue). Because both species were recorded (2009-2014) from the French Atlantic coast, they have probably been introduced to the English Channel through the accumulated fouling of the hulls of ships used primarily for recreational purposes or by transfer of the Japanese oyster Crassostrea gigas between oyster farms along the French oyster production intertidal zones.

Highlights

Among the 151 non-native species (NNS) recorded in Normandy (French coast of the English Channel) at the end of 2018, the crustaceans, mainly barnacles, amphipods and decapods with 34 species, was the richest zoological group (Baffreau et al 2018; Pezy et al 2020)
Gouillieux et al (2015) first reported this Pacific amphipod genus in European waters with three species recorded in the southern part of the Bay of Biscay and Bay of Brest along the French Atlantic waters in 2009–2014: Aoroides semicurvatus and A. curvipes, in the Arcachon Bay and Hossegor Lake; and A. longimerus, in the Arcachon and Brest Bays
The aim of this paper is to report the recent records of Aoroides longimerus and A. semicurvatus in the Normandy zone of the English Channel

Summary

Introduction

Among the 151 non-native species (NNS) recorded in Normandy (French coast of the English Channel) at the end of 2018, the crustaceans, mainly barnacles, amphipods and decapods with 34 species, was the richest zoological group (Baffreau et al 2018; Pezy et al 2020). Male specimens had been reported from oyster reefs, floating pontoons in marinas, Zostera meadows and slipper limpet beds (Gouillieux et al 2015) Two of these three species originated in Japan (Ariyama 2004), while A. longimerus originated from China (Ren and Zheng 1996). During the 2017 autumn, several individuals of the species A. semicurvatus were reported from the Oosterschelde, Netherlands (Faasse et al 2018). Faasse et al (2018) suggested that shellfish imports, or, less likely, transport with recreational vessels, could be the introduction vector

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