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Accelerated invasion of decapod crustaceans in the southernmost point of the Atlantic coast of Europe: A non-natives’ hot spot?

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Abstract

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 African cleaner shrimp Lysmata uncicornis, the Indo-West Pacific giant tiger prawn, Penaeus monodon, and the Atlantic blue crab Callinectes sapidus. The introduction and establishment of these species into the coastal waters of this region, the southernmost Atlantic coast of Spain may have been influenced by recent anthropogenic alteration of habitat, particularly estuaries and salt marshes, and by climate change facilitating the spread of warm water biota.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jim Carlton and two anonymous referees for their constructive comments on this manuscript. This work was partially funded by the Spanish “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación” (PID2019-105978RA-I00).

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Correspondence to Enrique González-Ortegón.

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González-Ortegón, E., Jenkins, S., Galil, B.S. et al. Accelerated invasion of decapod crustaceans in the southernmost point of the Atlantic coast of Europe: A non-natives’ hot spot?. Biol Invasions 22, 3487–3492 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02345-y

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