Exotic species dominate marinas between the two most populated regions in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean

• Published in: Marine pollution bulletin Vol. 146; pp. 884 - 892
• Main Authors: Oricchio, Felipe T., Marques, Antonio C., Hajdu, Eduardo, Pitombo, Fabio B., Azevedo, Fernanda, Passos, Flávio D., Vieira, Leandro M., Stampar, Sergio N., Rocha, Rosana M., Dias, Gustavo M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2019; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Anthropogenic impact; Artificial substrata; Benthic species; Coastal zone; Communities; Community homogenization; Indigenous species; Introduced species; Marinas; Marine invertebrates; Native organisms; Native species; Non-indigenous species; Nonnative species; Northern Hemisphere; Rare species; Schizoporella errata; Community homogenization; Anthropogenic impact; Schizoporella errata; Benthic species; Non-indigenous species
• ISSN: 0025-326X; 1879-3363
• DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.07.013

Human occupation of coastal areas promotes the establishment of non-native species but information on bioinvasions is usually biased toward the Northern Hemisphere. We assessed non-native species' importance in sessile communities at six marinas along the most urbanized area of the Southwestern Atlantic coastline. We found 67 species, of which 19 are exotic. The most frequent species was the exotic polychaete Branchiomma luctuosum, while the most abundant was the exotic bryozoan Schizoporella errata that monopolized the substrata in three marinas. Along with S. errata, the exotic polychaete Hydroides elegans and ascidian Styela plicata dominated space in the three remaining marinas, while native species were in general rare. We show that communities associated with artificial substrata along this Brazilian urbanized area are dominated by exotic species and that using abundance data along with species identity can improve our understanding of the importance of exotic species for the dynamics of biological communities. •Artificial habitats in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean are dominated by exotic species.•Schizoporella errata, Hydroides elegans and Styela plicata are the dominant species.•Only 12 out of 67 sampled taxa are native to the studied region.•Abundance data show that exotic species can dominate up to 94% of the substrata.•Effective analyzes of exotic species demand both occurrence and abundance data.