GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION OF FABAEFORMISCANDONA SUBACUTA: AN EXOTIC INVASIVE OSTRACODA ON THE IBERIAN PENINSULA?

Abstract

Although exotic species of Ostracoda have been recorded from various sites in Europe, none of them have a widespread European distribution. Reviews of existing literature, examination of specimens, and sampling in Spain and Japan has greatly expanded the known distribution of the candonid ostracode Fabaeformiscandona subacuta (Yang, 1982). We herein present new reports of its presence in mainland eastern Asia, Australia, and South America, and we review its distribution on the Iberian Peninsula. Although this species is globally widespread, we hypothesize that it is an invasive species on the Iberian Peninsula in light of the following facts: it is not known from other European countries, its known global distribution is extremely disjunct, it has not been found during palaeo-limnological investigations of European lakes, and on the Iberian Peninsula it is almost exclusively found in artificial, intensely human-impacted habitats, mostly in reservoirs and ricefields.