Check List 14(4): 613-617, doi: 10.15560/14.4.613
First record of the invasive coral Oculina patagonica de Angelis, 1908 (Cnidaria, Scleractinia) in the Gulf of Mexico
expand article infoNorberto A. Colín García‡, Jorge E. Campos§, José L. Tello Musi|, Horacio Perez-España, Xavier Chiappa Carrara‡
‡ Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Sierra Papacal, Mexico§ Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Tlalnepantla, Mexico| niversidad Nacional Autónoma de México, FES Iztacala, Laboratorio de Zoología, Tlalnepantla, Mexico¶ Instituto de Ciencias Marinas y Pesquerías, Universidad Veracruzana, Veracruz, Mexico

Corresponding author: Norberto A. Colín García ( norberto82@gmail.com )

Academic editor: Sergio N. Stampar
© 2018 Norberto A. Colín García, Jorge E. Campos, José L. Tello Musi, Horacio Perez-España, Xavier Chiappa Carrara.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Colín García NA, Campos JE, Tello Musi JL, Perez España H, Carrara XC (2018) First record of the invasive coral Oculina patagonica de Angelis, 1908 (Cnidaria, Scleractinia) in the Gulf of Mexico. Check List 14(4): 613-617. https://doi.org/10.15560/14.4.611
Open Access
Abstract
Colonies of coral with morphology similar to that of Oculina patagonica de Angelis, 1908 were found in the National Park Veracruz Reef System (NPVRS) along the coast of Veracruz, Mexico in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The identity of these colonies as O. patagonica was confirmed by morphological and molecular analyses. Here, we document the first records of O. patagonica in the Gulf of Mexico. This species is native to the Mediterranean Sea, and could have been accidentally introduced to the Gulf of Mexico through ballast water from ships. In the NPVRS, poor environmental conditions such as polluted waters with high sedimentation, and the capability of O. patagonica to adapt could have facilitated the establishment of this species in the Gulf.
Keywords
Oculinidae, adaptation, coral distribution, dispersion, invasive species, establishment, polluted reefs, shipping