Ancient globetrotters-connectivity and putative native ranges of two cosmopolitan biofouling amphipods.

ABSTRACT: The geographic distributions of some coastal marine species have appeared as cosmopolitan ever since they were first scientifically documented. In particular, for many benthic species that are associated with anthropogenic substrata, there is much speculation as to whether or not their broad distributions can be explained by natural mechanisms of dispersal. Here, we focused on two congeneric coastal crustaceans with cosmopolitan distributions-the tube-dwelling amphipods Jassa marmorata and Jassa slatteryi. Both species are common elements of marine biofouling on nearly all kinds of artificial hard substrata in temperate to warm seas. We hypothesized that the two species' modern occurrences across the oceans are the result of human shipping activities that started centuries ag

SUBMITTER: Beermann J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7394068 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature