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Helgol Mar Res (2013) 67:715720 DOI 10.1007/s10152-013-0356-1
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Does the introduced polychaete Alitta succinea establish in the Caspian Sea?
Amir Faraz Ghasemi Mehrshad Taheri
Armin Jam
Received: 6 September 2012 / Revised: 14 April 2013 / Accepted: 16 April 2013 / Published online: 25 April 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg and AWI 2013
Abstract Members of the polychaete family Nereididae do not occur naturally in the Caspian Sea but are documented intentional human introductions that commenced in 1939. However, the identity of the species involved has been uncertain; material has been identied as both Alitta succinea and Hediste diversicolor. In this study, we conrm the presence of both species in the Caspian Sea. We discuss the distribution of both species, based on tolerance to physical factors, especially salinity. Although establishment of this partially predatory Nereidid, as a food reservoir could facilitate the recreation of commercially exploited sh stock, the consequences for native benthic communities are unclear and may be subject to unforeseen negative impacts.
Keywords Nereididae Alitta succinea Hediste
diversicolor Caspian Sea
Introduction
Between 1939 and 1941, individual Nereididae worms were brought from the Sea of Azov into the Caspian Sea for acclimatization in order to increase the food resources for the commercial sh. Russian marine scientists introduced 6,100 specimens in different places of the Caspian Sea from the Sea of Azov (Zenkevitch et al. 1945). The northern Caspian was rapidly colonized, and the animals subsequently spread into the middle and southern parts of the sea. In autumn 1944, Nereididae worms were recorded for the rst time in large quantities in the intestines of sturgeon from the Chechen Island (Spassky 1945). Initially, specialists thought the introduced species was Alitta succinea, but further examinations showed that the introduced species was Hediste diver-sicolor, and no specimen of A. succinea was recorded (Hartman 1960; Khlebovich 1963). Therefore, it was not clear whether A. succinea was established in the Caspian Sea or not Karpevich (1968, 1975), and most literature for the Caspian Sea has only reported H. diversicolor (Malinovskaja et al. 1998; Guseinov 2005; Karpinsky 2010; Roohi et al. 2010; Taheri and Foshtomi 2010; Taheri et al. 2011, 2012).
In 2010, during sampling of the macrobenthic community at shallow waters of the Mazandaran province, we observed some specimens with...