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Journal of the Marine First record of the Lessepsian fish Parexocoetus Biological Association of the United Kingdom mento in Italian waters and GIS-based spatial and temporal distribution in Mediterranean cambridge.org/mbi Sea Manuela Falautano , Patrizia Perzia and Luca Castriota Original Article Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, Lungomare Cristoforo Colombo 4521, 90149, Palermo, Cite this article: Falautano M, Perzia P, Italy Castriota L (2020). First record of the Lessepsian fish Parexocoetus mento in Italian Abstract waters and GIS-based spatial and temporal distribution in Mediterranean Sea. Journal of The Strait of Sicily in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea is considered a crossroads between the Marine Biological Association of the United the western and the eastern basins for species immigrating from the Atlantic Ocean and – Kingdom 100, 1163 1169. https://doi.org/ Lessepsian species. Among the latter, the African sailfin flyingfish Parexocoetus mento was 10.1017/S002531542000096X recently collected from Lampedusa Island in November 2017, and represents the first docu- Received: 21 February 2020 mented record in Italian waters. In this paper, the morphological and meristic characteristics Revised: 23 September 2020 of this specimen are reported and discussed, compared with the other species of the genus Accepted: 23 September 2020 Parexocoetus. Furthermore, as mapping and monitoring the distribution of invasive species First published online: 29 October 2020 is crucial to understanding their establishment and spread and then to manage the invasion Key words: process, the occurrences distribution of P. mento in the Mediterranean Sea was studied. The GIS; Lessepsian species; Mediterranean Sea; application of GIS-based spatial statistics allowed to identify significant clustering areas and Parexocoetus mento; spatial statistics; Strait of dispersion areas of the species, summarizing the key characteristics, and underlining direc- Sicily tional trends of distribution. GIS analysis identified two similar groups of records (1935/ Author for correspondence: 1966 and 1986/2017 time period), showing a change of distribution spatial pattern over Manuela Falautano, E-mail: manuela. time. An earlier spread direction in the Mediterranean east coast and a settled area of [email protected] P. mento were found. The analysis also includes the specimen caught in Italian waters. Introduction The Strait of Sicily is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and connects the eastern and the western basins. Thanks to its geographic position, it represents a crossroads between the two basins for range expanding species coming from the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar as well as for Lessepsian species (i.e. species immigrating from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal) (Guidetti et al., 2010), although only few of the latter have crossed the Strait of Sicily entering the western basin (Falautano et al., 2006). The two most important archipelagos of the Strait of Sicily are the Maltese Islands and the Pelagie Islands that, for their typical biogeographic and hydrodynamic features, are strategic observation outposts for the monitoring of non-indigenous species (Azzurro et al., 2014a). Among these species we can count the Atlantic Seriola carpenteri (Pizzicori et al., 2000), Seriola rivoliana (Castriota et al., 2002), Cephalopholis taeniops (Guidetti et al., 2010), as well as the Lessepsian Siganus luridus (Azzurro & Andaloro, 2004), Hemiramphus far (Falautano et al., 2014), Etrumeus gola- nii (Falautano et al., 2006 as E. teres) and Lagocephalus sceleratus (Azzurro et al., 2014b). Recently, findings of species not recorded before in the Strait of Sicily became more frequent thanks to the cooperation of fishermen who promptly inform researchers if they capture organisms that they have never fished before. This happened also for the finding of the African sailfin flying fish Parexocoetus mento, caught for the first time in Italian waters near Lampedusa Island (Strait of Sicily), in November 2017. According to Froese & Pauly (2020), three species belong to the genus Parexocoetus Bleeker, 1865, but they have long been confused with each other in the literature. However, based on the more recent descrip- tions of such species, P. mento can be distinguished from the other two species by defined characteristics, as discussed below. Parexocoetus mento is a Lessepsian immigrant that has a © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2020 wide natural distribution range, occurring in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from East Africa, including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, to southern Japan, Marshall Islands, Fiji Islands and Queensland (Australia) (Parin, 1996). Parexocoetus mento is a tropical epipelagic schooling species inhabiting neritic and inshore areas and more rarely surface waters of the open ocean, being capable of leaping out of the water and gliding over a long distance (Golani et al., 2002). Its diet is based on zooplanktonic organisms, mostly copepods (Tsukahara & Shiokawa, 1957), while the larger specimens also feed on small fishes (Parin, 1996). This species becomes sexually mature at 93.3–104.7 mm standard length (SL) (98–110 mm fork length (FL) for males and females respectively) and reaches a maximum size of 122.1 mm SL (123–130 mm FL for males and females respectively) (Tsukahara & Shiokawa, 1957; Dasilao et al., 2002). Like other flying fishes, it is caught acci- dentally in purse seines, driftnets and pelagic trawls, and has no commercial value. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 02 Oct 2021 at 15:19:48, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002531542000096X 1164 Manuela Falautano et al. Fig. 1. Specimen of Parexocoetus mento from Lampedusa Island. The present paper documents the first record of P. mento in Measuring P. mento geographic distribution in the the Strait of Sicily as well as for Italian waters. Furthermore, Mediterranean Sea by GIS-based spatial statistics mapping and monitoring the distribution of invasive species is In order to understand the spreading of P. mento in the crucial to understand their spread, potential establishment, and Mediterranean, a spatial and temporal distribution analysis was then to manage the invasion process. Therefore, occurrences of carried out. Parexocoetus mento occurrences data were obtained P. mento in the Mediterranean are analysed in order to provide from the literature, also including the present record. The spatial an overview of spatial distribution and to identify directional data and their attributes were carried out under Geographic trends of spread. Information Systems (GIS) using ArcGIS 10.3 ESRI and its extensions. Materials and methods According to Lipej et al.(2013), the dataset was processed using the year of first record within a 0.5 degree Lat/Long grid, Data collection and species identification since considering subsequent records in the same grid cell can On 25 November 2017, a specimen of flying fish was caught in lead to an error for distribution modelling (Gabrosek & Cressie, the coastal waters of Lampedusa Island, Strait of Sicily 2002). (35°29′49.15′′N 12°35′28.99′′E). The specimen was fished in GIS-based analysis was focused on the following aspects: (i) the early morning, at a depth of 15 m, together with several indi- analysing distribution patterns and identifying species direction viduals of Belone sp. (weighing in total 20 kg), by a small spread and settled areas; (ii) describing and modelling P. mento surrounding net without purse line targeting needlefish spatial and temporal distribution. All these analyses were carried (Belonidae), locally called ‘agugliara’. The fisherman, who had out using ArcGIS Spatial Statistics tools, an important set of never seen a fish like this, took a photo (Figure 1) and preserved exploratory techniques for understanding the spatial and tem- the specimen by freezing it. The specimen was identified as the poral occurrence distribution of P. mento. African sailfin flying fish Parexocoetus mento (Valenciennes, GIS-based spatial statistics allowed us to: assess overall patterns 1846) according to the more recent descriptions from the litera- of clustering or dispersion; recognize aggregation patterns and ture (Parin, 1996; 1999; 2003; Parin & Shakhovskoy, 2016; statistically significant spatial structures; identify groups of fea- Collette et al., 2019). The specimen was measured considering tures with similar characteristics based on year of occurrence; total length (TL), standard length (SL), fork length (FL) and and summarize the distribution key characteristics for each sizes related to head length (HL). Measurements were taken by group identified (Mitchell, 2005; Scott & Janikas, 2010). fish measuring board to the millimetre below, except for HL In order to study the aggregation patterns and the spatial and referred measures that were taken by calliper to the lowest structure of the occurrences, spatial autocorrelation through 0.1 mm. As for meristic counts, the number of rays for the dorsal, Global Moran’s I, GMI and cluster and outlier analysis through pectoral, ventral and anal fins as well as the predorsal scales were Anselin local Moran’s I, AMI were carried out. The GMI statistic recorded. Morphometric and meristic data were then compared method works on feature ‘locations’ and feature value ‘year’ sim- with those reported in the

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