The Silent Threat of a Non-native Oligochaete Species in Iran's freshwater: Assessment of the Diversity and Origin of Eiseniella tetraedra (Savigny, 1826) and its Response to Climate Change

Abstract

Abstract Oligochaetes are the most abundant benthic taxa in aquatic ecosystems that play an important role in food webs and energy transmission. The aim of the current study is to assess the origin and diversity of Eiseniella tetraedra a non-native species of Lar National Park in Alborz Mountain ranges of Iran and also its response to current and future climate change. To this, we collected the specimen (23 samples) from Lar National Park Rivers and performed the mitochondrial gene, mitochondrial Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) combining them with 117 sequences from Jajroud, Karaj River in Iran and native regions from GenBank (NCBI). We also used an ensemble model approach for Species Distribution Modelings (SDMs) that it was estimated according to two Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs): 126 and 585 of the MRI-ESM2 based on CMIP6. According to our results, all the samples examined in the current study originated from Spanish rivers and there was no unique haplotype found in Lar National Park. Moreover, The results also show high haplotype diversity that can have a positive effect on the success of its non-native in the different freshwater of Iran. As well as, the result of SDMs maps illustrated that climate change would significantly affect the distribution of E. tetraedra and it showed a sharp tendency to expand and verified the invasion power of the E. tetraedra in Iran's freshwater ecosystems over time.