Marine Biodiversity Records, page 1 of 2. #2007 Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom doi:10.1017/S1755267207008020; Vol. 1; e79; 2008 Published online
On the presence of the brachyuran crab Macropodia tenuirostris (Crustacea: Decapoda: Majidae) on the Levantine coast of Turkey 2 3 € € € € a. suat ates1, sukran yalcin ozdilek , tahir ozcan and tunay kontas4 1
C ¸ anakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Department of Marine Biology, Fisheries Faculty, 17100 C ¸ anakkale, Turkey, 2C ¸ anakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Faculty of Education, Department of Biology Education, 17100 C ¸ anakkale, Turkey, 3Ege University, Department of Marine Biology, Fisheries Faculty, 35100 Bornova-I˙zmir, Turkey, 4Mustafa Kemal University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Tayfur Sokmen Campus 31040 Antakya, Hatay, Turkey
The majoid crab, Macropodia tenuirostris is now reported off the Samandag˘ coast, Hatay, south-eastern Turkey. One male specimen of Macropodia tenuirostris was found on 31 January 2007 on a sandy bottom with a sea grass meadow, Halophila stipulacea (Forska˚l) Ascherson at a depth of 25 m (GPS coordinates: 36801 0 24 00 N 35858 0 33 00 E) by bottom trawl, with a codend mesh size of 22 mm. It is one of the six species of Macropodia in the Mediterranean Sea, and is widely distributed in the eastern Atlantic (Faeroe Islands, North Sea, all British coasts, southwards to Western Sahara, Cape Verde Islands) and in the entire Mediterranean. Macropodia tenuirostris as here reported presents the first record of this species for the Turkish part of the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Keywords: Macropodia tenuirostris; decapoda; brachyura; eastern Mediterranean; Turkey
The majoid crab, Macropodia tenuirostris (Leach, 1814) is one of the seven species of genus Macropodia in the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean. The species is now reported off the Samandag˘ coast, Hatay, south-eastern Turkey. Macropodia tenuirostris is one of the six species of Macropodia in the Mediterranean Sea, and is widely distributed in the eastern Atlantic (Faeroe Islands, North Sea, all British coasts, southwards to Western Sahara, Cape Verde Islands) and in the entire Mediterranean (Noe¨l, 1992; Falciai & Minervini, 1996). This species occurs in various areas such as the British waters (Ingle, 1980), the Gulf of Gascogne, the north-eastern Atlantic (Lagarde`re, 1973), the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of ´ lvarez, 1968; Garcı´a Raso the Iberian Peninsula (Zariquiey A et al., 1987; Farin˜a et al., 1997), the Sicilian coast, the central Mediterranean (Pipitone & Arculeo, 2003), the Gulf of Venice, the northern Adriatic Sea (Hall-Spencer et al., 1999), Mora Peninsula, the Aegean Sea (d’Udekem d’Acoz, 1994), the Evvoia coast, the Aegean Sea (Kattoulas & Koukouras, 1975), Izmir Bay, the Aegean Sea (Geldiay & Kocatas¸, 1972), the coast of Israel (Holthuis & Go¨ttlieb, 1958), and the northern Cyprus coast (Kocatas¸ et al., 2001). It has been reported in depths from about 9 and 97 m on muddy to hard substrata, in estuaries, and also on colonies of hydrozoan, Sertularella sp. at depths down to 300 m. During an experimental demersal fisheries study carried out off the Samandag˘ coast, south-eastern Mediterranean, one male specimen of Macropodia tenuirostris was found on 31 January 2007 on a sandy bottom with meadow,
Corresponding author: A.S. Ates Email:
[email protected]
Halophila stipulacea (Forska˚l) Ascherson at a depth of 25 m (GPS coordinates: 368010 2400 N 358580 3300 E) (Figure 1) by bottom trawl, with a cod-end mesh size of 22 mm. The speci´ lvarez (1968) and men was identified by following Zariquiey A Falciai & Minervini (1996), and photographed (Figure 2). Adult specimens (carapace length including rostrum, 15.80 mm) are now preserved in the Fisheries Faculty (in the collection of Dr A.S. Ates¸) of the C ¸ anakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey. Kattoulas & Koukouras (1975), collected the species from the circallittoral zone, at a depth of nearly 100 m, from a bottom consisting of mud. Hall-Spencer et al. (1999), recorded the species on the soft bottoms with bivalves, Aequipecten opercularis (Linnaeus, 1758), Pecten jacobeus (Linnaeus, 1758) and Atrina fragilis (Pennant, 1777) in the Gulf of Venice (northern Adriatic Sea). In more recent times, it was reported on sandy
Fig. 1. Map showing the location of sampling site off Samandag˘, Levantine coast of Turkey.
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Farin˜a A.C., Freire J. and Gonza´les-Gurriara´n E. (1997) Megabenthic decapod crustacean assemblages on the Galician continental shelf and upper slope (north-west Spain). Marine Biology 127, 419–434. Garcı´a Raso J.E., Gonza´lez Gurriara´n E. and Sadra` F. (1987) Estudio comparativo de la fauna de Crusta´ceos deca´podos braquiuros de tres a´reas de la Peninsula Iberica (Galicia, Ma´laga y Catalun˜a). Investigacio´n Pesquera 51, (Supll. 1), 43–55. Geldiay R. and Kocatas¸ A. (1972) Note pre´liminaire sur les peuplements benthiques du Golfe d’I˙zmir. Science Monograph Faculty of Science, Ege University 12, 1–34. [In Turkish.] Hall-Spencer J.M., Froglia C., Atkinson R.J.A. and Moore P.G. (1999) The impact of Rapido trawling for scallops, Pecten jacobaeus (L.), on the benthos of Gulf of Venice. ICES Journal of Marine Science 56, 111–124.
Fig. 2. Macropodia tenuirostris (Leach, 1814), male, TL: 15.80 mm, Samandag˘, Turkey, Mediterranean Sea, dorsal view. (Photograph by Dr A.S. Ates¸.)
bottoms at depths between 10 and 40 m on the Sicily shores, the central Mediterranean (Pipitone & Arculeo, 2003). Balkıs et al. (2001), found a single specimen of Macropodia tenuirostris on muddy ground at a depth of 10 m on the coast of Imbroz Island, in the north-eastern Aegean Sea. Recently, Kocatas¸ & Katag˘an (2003), have reported three Macropodia species from the Mediterranean coast of Turkey: Macropodia linerasi Forest & Zariquiey Alvarez, 1964, M. longipes (A. Milne-Edwards & Bouvier, 1899) and M. rostrata (Linnaeus, 1761). Until then, Macropodia tenuirostris had been reported from the Turkish Aegean Sea only (Kocatas¸ & ¨ zcan et al. (2005), reported only Macropodia Katag˘an, 2003). O rostrata at a depth of 30 m off the Samandag˘ coast. This species was also reported on the northern Cyprus coast of the eastern Mediterranean (Kocatas¸ et al., 2001). The capture of one specimen of M. tenuirostris nearly 250 km eastward of the last recorded location indicates that this species might have rapidly migrated from the west to the east although it originally belongs to the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean. According to d’Udekem d’Acoz (1999) specimens of the Mediterranean are more slender, and we also observed this. The specimen examined in this study had a carapace length of 15.80 mm. The depth and substrate type were found to be similar to the specifications cited by d’Udekem d’Acoz (Crustikon, 2007). In conclusion, Macropodia tenuirostris as here reported presents the first record of this species for the Turkish part of the eastern Mediterranean Sea. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The study was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey TOVAG 10502107 code project. REFERENCES Balkıs H., Balkıs N. and Altınsac¸lı S. (2001) The crab species found on the coasts of Gokceada (Imbroz) in the Aegean Sea. Hydrobiologia 449, 99–103. Crustikon. 01.06.2007 Speciesindex
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ibe´ricos.
Correspondence should be addressed to: A. Suat Ates¸ C ¸ anakkale Onsekiz Mart University Department of Marine Biology Fisheries Faculty 17100 C ¸ anakkale Turkey email:
[email protected] Submitted 18 April 2007 Accepted 22 June 2007 Published 23 June 2007 on MBA website
