Page 2 - MANNINO_BALISTRERI

50° Congresso della Società Italiana di Biologia Marina
Livorno, 10-14 giugno 2019
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are crucial. Among IAS, Caulerpa cylindracea Sonder 1845, introduced from Australia
and New Caledonia (Belton et al., 2014), is currently widespread in the whole
Mediterranean Sea. This species raises serious concern, due to its ascertained impact
on native biodiversity and habitats (Katsanevakis et al., 2014). We report on our
experience of Caulerpa cylindracea monitoring within the Egadi Islands MPA (Sicily,
Tyrrhenian Sea), which took place between 2014 and 2016 through the Citizen Science
Project ‘Caulerpa cylindracea Egadi Islands’ (Mannino et al., 2016, 2017; Mannino
and Balistreri, 2018) and was continued by the Citizen Science Project “Aliens in the
sea”. We focused on Favignana, which resulted the island most affected by NIS
(Mannino et al., 2016, 2017).
Materials and methods - Favignana Island (37°56′00′′ N, 12°19′00′′ E), is one of the
main islands of the Egadi Islands MPA (instituted in 1991), a small archipelago located
approximately 7-9 km from the western coast of Sicily (Italy, Tyrrhenian Sea). The
Project ‘Caulerpa cylindracea Egadi Islands’ aimed to collect data on the distribution
of C. cylindracea whereas the project “Aliens in the sea”, currently in progress, is
based on the collection of data on the occurrence of a group of 19 NIS, including C.
cylindracea. Volunteers (students, tourists, divers, underwater photographers, amateurs
and fishermen) were invited to report the occurrence of the NIS together with photos
and additional information (e.g. site, date, depth, substrate coverage % within a 400
2
cm quadrat). Three classes of coverage % were considered: 1 (1-20 %), 2 (20-50%), 3
(>50%). All the records posted by the volunteers were periodically verified-validated
by a Scientific team.
Results - The project “Aliens in the sea” allowed to confirm the records registered
during the project ‘Caulerpa cylindracea Egadi Islands’ and to register new sites and
records (see Tab. 1).

Tab. 1 - Occurrences of Caulerpa cylindracea at Favignana Island.
Presenze di Caulerpa cylindracea a Favignana.
Number of records
Class of
Sites Rock with
coverage (%) Rock
sediment
1 (1-20) 3
Vermetid reef: 13 (2 new) 2 (20-50) 2
3 (>50) 5 3
1 (1-20) 4

Cystoseira communities (Upper Infralittoral zone): 17 (1 new) 2 (20-50) 3 4
3 (>50) 3 3
1 (1-20) 2

Coralligenous formations: 7 (1 new) 2 (20-50) 2 2
3 (>50) 2

216 Volume pre-print