An example for transatlantic hitchhiking by macrozoobenthic organisms with a research vessel

Abstract

In 2019 the RV Meteor cruised from Guadalupe in April/May to Cape Verde in June/July and to Namibia in August/September. The distance is about 10,000 km. The ship has a moon pool for installation of instruments. In Cape Verde we had a first glimpse of the already sparsely populated moon pool. We reached Namibian waters in mid-August. In mid-September, 47 days later and 6000 km south, the ship's moon pool was sampled in the port of Walvis Bay. 13 different taxa could be identified belonging to two phyla, four classes, six orders and 10 families. Most of these species have not yet been observed in the port or in the adjacent areas and are new records for the entire Namibian coast. The goose barnacles Conchoderma auritum (Linnaeus, 1767), Conchoderma virgatum Spengler, 1789 and Lepas anatifera Linnaeus, 1758 were particularly noticeable. They were only surpassed by the large number of amphipods. The species Ericthonius brasiliensis (Dana, 1853), Jassa marmorata Holmes, 1905, Stenothoe senegalensis Krapp-Schickel, 2015 and Paracaprella pusilla Mayer, 1890 are particularly noteworthy here. In addition, the pycnogonid species Endeis straughani Clark, 1970 and the titan acorn barnacle Megabalanus coccopoma (Darwin, 1854) should be mentioned, which occurred very frequently as well. The present study shows, on the one hand, an example of the transatlantic spread of bioinvasive species by ships as vectors and, on the other hand, a convenient method for sampling ship hulls.