Boll. Malacol., 44 (9-12): 123-126 (2008)

On the occurrence of punctata (Gmelin, 1791) (: ) in Puglia, South-Eastern Italy

Paolo G. Albano* () & Daniele Trono#

* Department Abstract of Experimental Evidence of live populations of on the Ionian coasts of Puglia, South-Eastern Italy, Evolutionary Biology, is given. These reports extend the known distribution of this to a new area of the Mediterranean University of Bologna, Basin and follow other records clearly describing an ongoing northwards range extension of the species. Italy, pgalbano@iperbole. bologna.it, () corresponding author Riassunto # Copertino (LE), Italy, Si segnalano diverse popolazioni di Echinolittorina punctata per le coste ioniche della Puglia. Questo ritro- [email protected] vamento estende l’areale conosciuto di questa specie in Mediterraneo. La specie è storicamente conosciu- ta per le coste meridionali del Mar Mediterraneo e, in Italia, per la Sicilia. Negli ultimi anni i diversi rinveni- menti pubblicati indicano una chiara estensione dell’areale lungo le coste italiane tirreniche partendo dalla Calabria per arrivare, tramite la Campania, al Lazio. Le ipotesi di una specie che amplia il suo areale in con- seguenza dell’aumento di temperatura delle acque del Mediterraneo potrebbe trovare una spiegazione nel ciclo riproduttivo della specie, attivato proprio dalle alte temperature e inibito da quelle basse.

Key Words Echinolittorina punctata, Gastropoda, Littorinidae, Puglia, Mediterranean Sea, climate change.

Introduction and south of Gallipoli from December 2007 to July 2008 (Fig. 1). Specimens were photographed alive in the field Echinolittorina punctata (Gmelin, 1791) is a littorinid gas- to show in situ habits and in the laboratory to record the tropod with a distribution extending from West Africa living . Living specimens were then fixed in to the Mediterranean Sea (Williams & Reid, 2004). ethanol. Its Mediterranean distribution has recently been reviewed Additional records of E. punctata, particularly from Pu- by Antit et al. (2007). The species is known from Southern glia, were obtained from Italian collectors and institu- Spain, the North-African coasts, Israel and Lebanon. tional collections. In Italy, the species has been known to live on the coasts A bibliographical research was carried out to under- of Sicily for several decades. However, Antit et al. (2007) stand the historical distribution of the species in Puglia. hypothesized the species has reached Sicily only in the 19th century. In recent years, the Italian range of E. punc- tata has rapidly enlarged and several new records have been published: first on the eastern coasts of the Strait of Messina (Micali & Giovine, 1983), then in Calabria near Vibo Valentia (D’Anna, 1997), in Campania at several lo- calities and in Lazio at S. Felice Circeo (D’Anna, 2001; Soppelsa et al., 2004). The most recent and most north- ern record in the Tyrrhenian Sea is to our knowledge at Borgo Sabotino, near Latina in Lazio (De Santis, 2008). Italian coasts have been researched by amateur and profes- sional collectors with great intensity since the 19th century, so the recent northwards expansion of the range of the species cannot be explained by a lack of information, and the hypothesis of an expansion driven by climatological changes acquires relevance. To further support the knowl- edge of the range changes of this species, new records of live populations from Puglia and comments on the histori- cal presence of the species in the region are given.

Materials and methods Field research was carried out at several localities on Fig. 1. Location of Gallipoli in Puglia, Italy. the Ionian coast of Puglia, especially within 20 km north Fig. 1. Posizione di Gallipoli in Puglia. 123 Discussion along the Italian coasts by ENEA and Società Italiana di Malacologia which collected data from 1958 to 1997 did The first authors’ record of E. punctata in Puglia dates not report any finding of E. punctata from Puglia. back to December 6th, 2007 when shore collecting in In the past, E. punctata has been cited from Puglia in the Parco Regionale “Isola Sant’Andrea Litoranea Punta literature in only a few cases. Praus-Franceschini (1906) Pizzo” (a few kilometers south of Gallipoli) led to the records the presence of a lot of this species in the Zoolo- discovery of a population living on mesolittoral rocks gical Museum of Naples from Tricase. Tricase is a small projecting from the surrounding sand. Although the town in southeastern Puglia a few kilometers from the rocky shore was narrow, a clear zonation between E. sea. We were not able to recover this lot in the Museum punctata and Melarhaphe neritoides (Linné, 1758) was ob- (Maio, pers. comm.) and therefore have no data on the served. E. punctata populated the lower part of the number of specimens and if dead or live collected. It Paolo G. Albano & Daniele Trono shore (mesolittoral) and M. neritoides the upper part would have been desirable to check identification (al- (supralittoral). The population consisted of several tens though E. punctata is a species difficult to confuse with of specimens. The same population was observed again others) and verify the content of the label to assess in July 2008, showing that it is likely to be a stable one. whether Praus-Franceschini referred to the town in Pu- Further research was then carried out during the fol- glia or to any other place-name around Italy or the Me- lowing months hoping to localize further populations diterranean Basin, since he did not specify the province both north and south of Gallipoli, but results were poor. or region. However, on June 25th, 2008 a new abundant popula- Trono (2006) revised the fauna of Salento, the southern tion was found near Torre Sabea, a few kilometers north part of Puglia, and recorded one empty shell from –20 of Gallipoli. Here a low rocky coast is present and E. m at Santa Caterina (Lecce) in 1999. punctata was found in supralittoral rock pools together E. punctata is also cited in an old work by Parenzan (1961). with M. neritoides. Isolated specimens were then found This work describes the malacofauna of the entire Io- at Torre Inserraglio, 15 kilometers north of Gallipoli on nian Sea, considered by Parenzan to cover the coasts of June 29th and at Santa Caterina, 10 kilometers north of central North Africa, Turkey, Greece and from Sicily to Gallipoli. Puglia in Southern Italy. Parenzan did not specify the Contacts with several other collectors yielded data on 6 locality of the record he reported. However, in the ma- other lots of E. punctata from Puglia, all from the Ionian nuscript list of Parenzan’s collection E. punctata is cited coast and within a few kilometers of Gallipoli, which only from Sicily (Siracusa and Agrigento) and no speci- seems to be the center of the distribution of the species at mens are recorded from Puglia. Since Parenzan himself present. All records date to after the year 2000 (Tab. 1). (1970) reported that E. punctata was abundant at that Some collectors who extensively explored both the A- time in southern Sicily, his record in 1961 is likely relat- driatic and Ionian coasts of Puglia from 1960 to 2000 (G. ed to southern Sicily and not to Puglia. Oriolo, P. Piani, B. Sabelli, pers. comm) did not record The origin of populations in Puglia is difficult to deter- this species. Moreover, the census of marine molluscs mine. However, since summer surface currents are coun-

Locality Latitude Longitude Date Live specimens Collection Lecce – – May 5th, 2000 3 Tisselli Gallipoli (Lecce) 40°03'N 17°50'E Summer 2000 4 Renda Gallipoli (Lecce), Lido Conchiglie 40°06'53"N 18°00'10"E July 25th, 2003 1 Perugia loc. Montagna Spaccata Gallipoli (Lecce) Lido S. Giovanni 40°02'53"N 18°00'10"E 2005 20 Perna Gallipoli (Lecce) Lido S. Giovanni 40°02'53"N 18°00'10"E 2006 50 Perna Gallipoli (Lecce) Lido S. Giovanni 40°02'53"N 18°00'10"E August 2007 200 Perna Gallipoli (Lecce), Parco Regionale “Isola Sant’Andrea Litoranea 40°00'42"N 18°01'11"E Dec. 6th, 2007 77 Albano, Trono Punta Pizzo” Gallipoli, Rivabella, Torre Sabea 40°04'47"N 18°00'30"E June 25th, 2008 50 Trono Torre Inserraglio (Lecce) 40°10'34"N 17°56'02"E June 29th, 2008 2 Trono Gallipoli (Lecce), Parco Regionale “Isola Sant’Andrea Litoranea 40°00'42"N 18°01'11"E July 1st, 2008 50 Trono Punta Pizzo” Santa Caterina (Lecce) 40°08'34"N 17°58'35"E July 12th, 2008 8 Trono

Tab. 1. Segnalazioni di E. punctata per la Puglia (coordinate secondo il datum WGS84). 124 Tab. 1. Records of E. punctata from Puglia (coordinates by datum WGS84). ter-clockwise in the Ionian Sea, it is likely they come from Greece. Records from Greece are rare, however; Ni- colay & Angioy (1988) record specimens from Keratea in the Northwestern Aegean Sea, the Academy of Natu- ral Sciences of Philadelphia, USA, has a lot in its collec- tion from Rodi (collected before 1976, lot number 18579) and specimens have been recorded from Crete (Reid, pers. comm.). This is a different path of extension from the one described in recent literature from Sicily north- wards to Calabria, Campania and Lazio which is fa- voured by the counter-clockwise Tyrrhenian Sea current. There is not a recent colour illustration of the animal On the occurrence of and it is here provided in Figs 2, 3. The base of the foot is whitish. The foot and the snout are yellowish with dark surface pigmentation. The tentacles are yellowish with two pale grey longitudinal lines. The columellar muscle is white. The head has black pigmentation on Fig. 2. Live animal of Echinolittorina punctata, Capo Mulini (Catania, Si- the surface, but the red coloration of the buccal muscu- cily), June 12th, 2008. Echinolittorina punctata lature is visible by transparency. This description is Fig. 2. Animale di Echinolittorina punctata, Capo Mulini (Catania, Si- based on specimens from Puglia and Capo Mulini (Ca- cilia), 12/06/2008. tania, Sicily) and matches the description of the animal given by Rosewater (1970), and accounts of other Echi- driven by changes in the physical characters of the seas nolittorina species by Reid (2002, 2007). with special concern to surface water temperature. Wa-

ter temperature seems to play an important role in the Italy (Gmelin, 1791) (Gastropoda: Littorinidae) in Puglia, South-Eastern Conclusions reproduction of this species, activating the sexual cycle (Palant & Fishelson, 1968). The lack of records of live specimens of E. punctata be- fore 2000, together with the lack of any reliable record Acknowledgements in the literature, lead us to conclude that the coloniza- tion of the coasts of Puglia by E. punctata is a recent We wish to thank Paolo Crovato and Henk K. Mienis event. This may be seen in the context of a progressive who provided references. Nicola Maio, Giovanni Orio- extension of the range of this species which may be lo, Edoardo Perna, Piero Piani, Ivan Perugia, Walter

Fig. 3. Live animal of Echinolittorina punctata, Parco Regionale “Isola Sant’Andrea Litoranea Punta Pizzo” (a few kilometers south of Gallipoli, Puglia), December 6th, 2007. Fig. 3. Animale di Echinolittorina punctata, Parco Regionale “Isola Sant’Andrea Litoranea Punta Pizzo” (pochi km a sud di Gallipoli, Puglia), 6/12/2007. 125 Renda, Bruno Sabelli, Morena Tisselli and several other friends gave information on their records of the species from Italy. David Reid (Natural History Museum, Lon- don) improved the manuscript with several comments and additions.

References

Antit M., Gofas S., Azzouna A., 2007. New records of upper shore for the Tunisian coast: newcomers or over- looked? Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the

Paolo G. Albano & Daniele Trono United Kingdom; published on-line http://www.mba.ac.uk/ jmba/pdf/6020.pdf. D’Anna G., 1997. Segnalazione di punctata (Gme- lin, 1791) per Zambrone (Vibo Valentia). Notiziario SIM, 15 (1-4): 20. D’Anna G., 2001. Presenza di Nodilittorina punctata (Gmelin, 1791) sulle coste del basso Salernitano. La Conchiglia, 33 (300): 53-54. De Santis F., 2008 (June 7th). Echinolittorina punctata. [In] Forum della Società Italiana di Malacologia, available from http://www.sim-online.it/forum/viewtopic.php?t=402. ENEA, Università di Parma, Società Italiana di Malaco- logia. Censimento della malacofauna marina delle coste italiane. http://www.santateresa.enea.it/wwwste/mala- co/home.htm, last access: July 15th, 2008 Micali P. & Giovine F., 1983. Elenco dei molluschi rinvenuti nel- lo Stretto di Messina. Comune di Messina, Messina; pp. 28 Nicolay K. & Angioy M., 1988. Tavole sinottiche di conchi- ologia mediterranea ed europea. Tav. XXXV: Fam. Litto- rinidae Gray, 1840. Parte I. La Conchiglia, 20 (226-227): 28-29. Palant B. & Fishelson L., 1968. punctata (Gmelin) and Littorina neritoides (L.), (Mollusca, Gastropoda) from Israel: ecology and annual cycle of genital system. Israel Journal of Zoology, 17: 145-160. Parenzan P., 1961. Malacologia Jonica. Introduzione allo stu- dio dei Molluschi dello Jonio. Thalassia Jonica, 4, 1-176. Parenzan P., 1970. Carta d’identità delle conchiglie del Medi- terraneo, Vol. I Gasteropodi. Ed. Bios Taras, Taranto, 283 pp. Praus Franceschini C., 1906. Elenco delle conchiglie del Golfo di Napoli e del Mediterraneo esistenti nel Museo Zoologico di Napoli. Annuario del Museo Zoologico della Reale Università di Napoli, n.s. 2 (5): 1-68. Reid D.G., 2002. The Nodilittorina von Martens, 1897 (Gastropoda: Littorinidae) in the eastern Pacific Ocean, with a discussion of biogeographic provinces of the rocky- shore fauna. Veliger, 45: 85–169. Reid D.G., 2007. The genus Echinolittorina Habe, 1956 (Gastro- poda: Littorinidae) in the Indo-West Pacific Ocean. Zootaxa 1420: 1–161. Rosewater J., 1970. The family Littorinidae in the Indo-Paci- fic. Part I. The subfamily Littorininae. Indo-Pacific Mollusca, 2 (11): 417-506. Rosewater J., 1981. The family Littorinidae in Tropical West Africa. Atlantide Report, 13: 7-48 Soppelsa O., Crocetta F. & Fasulo G., 2004. Prime seg- nalazioni di Nodilittorina punctata (Gmelin, 1791) per il Gol- fo di Salerno, il Golfo di Napoli ed i litorali laziali (Tirreno centro-meridionale). Bollettino della Società dei Naturalisti in Napoli, n.s. 2 (2003-2004): 41-44. Trono D., 2006. Nuovi dati sulla malacofauna del Salento (Puglia meridionale). Bollettino Malacologico, 42 (5-8): 58-84. Williams S.T. & Reid D.G., 2004. Speciation and diversity on tropical rocky shores: a global phylogeny of snails of the genus Echinolittorina. Evolution; 58: 2227–2251. Lavoro ricevuto il 16 luglio 2008 126 Lavoro accettato il 15 settembre 2008