Monitoring uncommon and non-indigenous fishes in Italian waters: One year of results for the AlienFish project

Abstract

Results of the AlienFish project – monitoring and study of rare and non-indigenous fish species in Italian waters – collected through citizen science in 2018 are here reported. Overall, 36 observations of 21 fish species belonging to 17 families were provided from the central and southern sectors of Italian seas. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of involving sea users in the detection of fish species of both indigenous and non-indigenous origin. Professional fishermen were particularly effective in providing information on rare deep-water and open-water fishes.