First joint morphological and molecular detection of Watersipora subatra in the Mediterranean Sea presented in an updated genus phylogeny to resolve taxonomic confusion

Abstract

Introduced species constitute a critical bio-security issue worldwide and the precise monitoring of their spread is crucial for their management. For species forming cryptic complexes this may remain difficult. Using integrative taxonomy, we formally report for the first time, well-established populations of the cosmopolitan introduced bryozoan Watersipora subatra in the French Mediterranean Sea and compile worldwide existing genetic data for Watersipora species alongside newly acquired data to establish the most complete phylogeny of the genus to date. This revealed pervasive erroneous identifications in Genbank, which in turn perpetrate further errors in recent studies, primarily misidentifying W. subatra as W. subtorquata. High abundance and geographic spread of W. subatra in our Mediterranean sampling sites suggest that this species has been present for some time but has been misidentified until now. We provide an updated species identification for all current reference sequences in the Watersipora genus, which may help future monitoring of W. subatra and other Watersipora species.